Droppings: Cats Are From Saturn
Dogs Are From Pluto
A family is a unit composed not only of children but of men, women, an occasional animal, and the common cold.
-- Ogden Nash
It must be raining cats and dogs. I just stepped in a poodle.
-- Red Skelton
For centuries it was believed that, since dogs and cats appeared to be mammals, they shared a common ancestor in the evolutionary chain. Assuming there is something to the theory of evolution, that would mean there once existed on earth a creature, call it a "dat" or a "cog," that ate tuna, slept all day, wagged its tail, panted, purred, chased itself, and wouldn't come when called.
Scientists have produced not a single fossil with these characteristics, although in the 19th century P.T. Barnum exhibited the bones of a creature he called "The Missing Lynx," which appeared to have the head of a dog, the tail of a cat, and the body of a large rabbit, and which he claimed to have been found in a gravel pit in Iowa. The whole thing turned out to be a hoax fabricated by schoolboys, but that did not prevent Barnum from continuing to profit from the exhibit, billing it "The Outrageous Darwinian Deceit."
What should have been obvious to even the casual observer, and most especially to those who had actual experience as "owners" of dogs or cats or dogs AND cats, was that they were not merely different species, but different lifeforms entirely.
SATURNIANS
When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her.
-- Michel de Montaigne
Cats are from Saturn. Their cells are not carbon-based, as are the cells of most living organisms on Earth, but silicon-based, which means that while they may appear graceful and fragile as a glass decanter, they are actually as tough and resilient as a fiberglass rowboat. The silicon nature of the animal may be detected as well in its glassy eyes, which are capable of staring down any carbon-based organism, from an amoeba on up.
Its nature is betrayed as well in a cat's fondness for computers, which are likewise silicon-based beings. While the dog is a Luddite who prefers the technology of the Stone Age (or as dogs call it, the Bone Age), a cat will often be found napping comfortably on or about a desktop computer, which it regards as the closest approximation to catdom to be found on Earth.
Like a cat, the computer sits there all day purring, not doing what it is told, and when not in use, nodding off. From time to time, a cat may even undertake some paws-on net surfing, although it prefers to bat the mouse around rather than use the keyboard. One is best advised to avoid cat chatrooms, however; the din is deafening.
The gravity of Saturn, a thousand times that of Earth, owing to its enormous mass, gave cats the apparent ability to levitate. The average housecat would weigh literally a ton on Saturn, and would crawl about the landscape like an alligator, dragging its body through the Saturnian slime.
When they migrated to Earth to escape the population explosion, cats discovered they could fly. Not literally, of course, since being neither avian nor angelic, they had no wings; but the energy which on Saturn would slide them a few centimeters (rather than inches, Saturn being on the metric system), on Earth would propel them several feet (rather than meters, Earth being on the system in which everything is measured by the length of a basketball player's sneaker).
Like Superman (who was of course from Krypton, which was almost as massive as Saturn) they found they could "leap tall buildings in a single bound" as long as the building wasn't too tall and they got a running start. From a standing start they could levitate to table-height with the slightest shove.
There is some question whether they can remain suspended in air any length of time. A Persian kitten was once observed to float for two minutes and 32 seconds, but you know how the Persians exaggerate. The average cat can remain airborne for probably no longer than 45 seconds, and then only if badly startled.
Try breaking in on your cat while it is sleeping soundly, which could be any time during the day, or when it is performing its ritual ablutions, at which time it appears to have discovered a fascinating bon-bon under its thigh, and you can test your own cat's staying power. It helps if you bark loudly.
The American record for mid-air suspension is one minute and ten seconds, held by Buffy of Oshkosh, Wisconsin. (Foreign judges cry foul, however, claiming that the cat was not really floating but rather clinging to the ceiling, having been badly startled by a pit bull.)
Plutonians
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
-- Mark Twain
Dogs are from Pluto, which as any schoolboy knows is the planet at the outermost fringe of the solar system and therefore the last to be discovered, being added to the skycharts by Walt Disney in 1932 and named after a cartoon character. (Having discovered Pluto, Disney went on to discover Goofy, a dog who could talk and who wore working clothes with a vest and a silly hat, but who was still as dumb as... well, as a dog.)
Pluto is a dumb planet, and most dogs, as a consequence are dumb, or at least dumb by cat standards. Unlike cats, who migrated to Earth with a definite purpose, i.e., to overpopulate it with their offspring, dogs simply broke the chain and wandered away. Some were put in a pound on Jupiter, where they are still waiting to be claimed, while others strayed to Earth where they became companions to men, who are not so bright either, again according to cat standards.
Dogs seemed especially attracted to the male of the human species, recognizing him as somehow kindred. A man's best friend, it is said, is a dog, while a woman's best friend is a box of chocolate.
Together, man and dog hunted, fished, drank beer, told lies, burped, and exclaimed, "It doesn't get any better than this." Woman, meanwhile stayed home with her kitties, had babies, cooked, cleaned, made beds, and said, "It damn well better get better than this." Then woman invented civilization, and neither man nor dog has had a moment's rest since, while women and cats have increasingly improved their lot.
A dog cannot fly, at least not to his knowledge. One explanation for the dog's inability to get off the ground is that it is, naturally enough, a plutonium-based life form, and plutonium is by definition a heavy metal. It can irradiate, it can explode, but it can't fly.
Still, some objective observers believe that a dog's inability to fly is purely psychological. Occasionally, having treed a squirrel, a dog wishes it could fly, or climb, or something, but its levitation ability remains untested, even though theoretically, judging from Pluto's mass, transplanted Plutonians should be able to float as easily as Tabby.
The truth of the matter, it seems increasingly clear, is that dogs are afraid of flying. They have seen it, and it doesn't look safe to them. How do cats do that? they wonder. And why? And how do cats always land on their feet?
They have watched younger males of the human species drop cats from rooftops to test the feline ability to dislocate their spines in midair, rotate half their torsos at a time, and land on all fours. The canine response has been to run and hide under the porch, lest the young males of the human species look around for further subjects of experimentation.
Dogs know they can't rotate their spines like that. They have experienced relatively small leaps which have resulted in spectacular and painful pratfalls, after which they pick themselves up, wag their tails, and act nonchalant. If God had wanted them to fly, they believe, He would have given them rotating spines and a sense of balance, like a cat's. They steadfastly refuse to take the leap, and remain earthbound. Cats, of course, attribute this flightlessness to a lack of imagination.
Dogs can swim, of course, which partially makes up for their inability to levitate. Dogs learned to swim when their masters attempted to drown them. Cats, who come from a planet devoid of H2O, detest water for any purpose, be it drinking, bathing, or swimming. For drinking, cats prefer champagne; for bathing, a good scrub with their own tongues; for swimming, walking on water, or at least attempting to do so.
