9 LIVES

Kitty: Why do cats have 9 lives? Me: Well Kitty, cats don’t really have 9 lives. The 9 lives expression is really just a metaphor that helps to illustrate the manner in which cats conduct themselves during the course of the one life they have. Take you, for an example. Given the number of times you have escaped the safety of home and then become involved with some scrappy street cat who either bit your ear, or left you with other injuries requiring the intervention of a vet, I’d say you needed about 5 lives to get to the point where you are today. And there’s the time you had a kidney stone which you likely got from eating too much of the food you love and not enough of the foods you wouldn’t choose unless you couldn’t get any of the foods you love. That kidney stone might have killed you, hence you needed another life. And then there’s at least a couple of times I can remember when you annoyed some person so much that you might have been murdered in a crime of passion. So you see, you would then have spent 8 lives and the fact that you had 9 would help to explain how it is that you are still with us today. Do you get what I mean? Kitty: I don’t get it. Me: Oh. What part of it don’t you get? Kitty: I don’t get how I just ask one simple question and you don’t even wait for me to give you the answer. Me: Oh dear. We seem to have had a communication problem. Shall we try again? Ask me a question. Kitty: Why do cats need 9 lives? Me: I don’t know. Kitty: They need one to live and 8 more to figure out what goes on in the heads of humans.