Wednesday 4 February 2009

The cat on the roof

I heard someone speaking outside my window this morning. The same intonation over and over: "Michi! Michi!" like calling a name. I poked my head out the window and indeed saw that it was a woman calling to her cat, evidently "Michi", on the roof. As she walked back and forth, the cat mirrored her position, but made no move to come down. "Come on Michi, come on." No visible response.

It occurred to me that the cat had no reason to leave the roof. With no immediate concerns - or at least none that could only be served from the ground - the roof is as good a place as any to be. And with a person walking up and down calling your name, it could start to feel a lot like worship. "I will parade before you my magnificence, that you might marvel at it and call my name in admiration." Why would you ever stop if that's what your world feels like?

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'm sure leaving the cat alone up there would have achieved faster results.
PPS - I didn't get to see how it ended.

4 comments:

Kammorremae said...

Training a cat to come when called has been easy in my experience. I got a laser pointer, and attached to it a keychain that made a very unique sound when jangled (it was an alluminum d-link).

The cats associated the sound with play, and soon, I merely had to jingle it, and the cats would hear it and bolt to me, purring as loud as they could.

Course, that doesn't help you once it's already on the roof...

John said...

To the best of my knowledge, laser pointers are now illegal in Australia unless you have a specific reason to own one. But the principle could be applied to other play devices the cat enjoys.

Kammorremae said...

Illegal eh? Guess too many kids with sodering kits used them to build death rays...

Or at least, I'd wish it was something that cool that made them illegal.

John said...

Nothing quite that cool. It pretty much boils down to a crotchety old grandma's admonition of "You could put somebody's eye out with that thing".