Do I Hate Cats?

Someone, whose identity I won't reveal has unjustly and publicly accused of hating cats. Now, I resent that, and would like to take this opportunity to put the record straight.

Cats. They make me sneeze, wheeze, snort, cough, choke. My eyes run, my nose runs, and I want leave rooms when a cat is present. I don't hate cats, - I abhor cats. I detest cats.. They're extremely unfriendly, conceited, self-centred and all around boorish individuals.

And those meows! How the good Lord in His wisdom could let a sound like that on this green earth mystifies me.

Consider also, the sound from their nocturnal amorous forays? Well, as they say, it's enough to raise the dead. Or the living for that matter. I distinctly recall waking in a cold sweat on many nights, a condition undoubtedly induced by those eerie, preternatural wails that emit from feline throats.

But enough.

Let's get down to specifics; let's try for some objectivity here. Lets examine the 'domesticated' cat in his habitat.

The first thing is that cats don't seem to feel they belong to anyone. They're kicked out of the house and their first action is to come straight round to your garden for their toilet. They leave poo in the petunias and wee on the wisteria. Priceless seedlings scratched up and left for dead looking like a horticultural vision of the Somme. I won't mention the stress experienced amongst the local bird population, - some of whom have probably had to seek psychiatric help.

Needless to say, any sane, right thinking person would find this extremely distressing and distasteful.

Now let's move into the living room of a cat lover's house, where it seems the cat gains no greater pleasure than popping onto your lap just as your settling down with the Sunday paper and a cup of real coffee. The paper gets trampled, and, of course, if you're drinking said coffee, the entire scalding mug goes everywhere, except inside you. Moreover, when you get up and escape the torture go back to your own house, half the cat comes with you in the form of hair attached to just about every item of clothing, prolonging your period of complete and utter distress.

Push a cat away and it comes back for more. Get rough with it, and out come those claws to rake your arm, draw blood and raise welts on the skin that can take hours- even days - to disappear. God forbid if you take a swipe at that lowly cousin to the King of Beasts. That's when every cat lover in the room comes out of the woodwork , calls the RSPCA and turns you in for animal abuse. When it was all a case of self-defense in the the first place!

Finally, my children adore them, and chastise me every time I exercise my freedom to criticise the flea-ridden beasts.

But it's not just cats, - any beast the licks its own backside or enjoys swallowing its own fur only to later sick it back up is not welcome in my house