Essay #2 - Classification Essay

Classification Essay

Cats.  Some people love them.  Some people hate them.  It’s hard to find someone indifferent to them.  An interesting thing I’ve noticed about cats is that they seem to know who likes them and who doesn’t.  However for some reason, if a cat chooses to stay around a group of people, it always seems to pick the cat-hater’s lap to try to sit on.  While the cat-lovers in the room are acting like fools, trying to get the independent feline’s attention, tempting it with anything from cooing noises to choice delicacies from their own plates, the free-spirited cat will nonchalantly strut right past them to the only person who is appalled that a cat is even sharing the same room with him and lightly float right onto the cat-hater’s lap.  It’s strange, but I’ve seen it happen too often to call it coincidence.  I have to admit, I don’t understand those cat-haters, not because I haven’t met ornery cats, but because, though cats have certain similarities, they are each so different.  It’s like saying I don’t like flowers because they all stink, remembering the day I happened to get stuck in a patch of skunk cabbage.  I also have to admit, that I didn’t always like cats either. I was excusably ignorant since I had never been introduced to a human’s feline friend.  Where I grew up, the only cats I came into contact with were dirty alley cats that haunted the city streets, lurking around in the dark, darting across the roads, coming out of nowhere,   and disappearing into mysterious corners.  It was only after moving to the country, when I was forced to get a kitten of my own in order to defend home and possessions from an invasion by an army of militant country mice that I learned the true joys of feline fellowship and have never turned back since.  Many cats have entered our home and passed on to the afterlife in the long years since then, each unique and special in its own way, just like the three that live with us now.

Shadow is our oldest cat. He’s a solid, silvery gray with long fur.  He was born on a dairy farm, one among several litters produced that fall, and my then 10-year-old daughter picked him out soon after he was born.  We went to visit him every week until he was old enough to come home with us.  Shadow’s 18 years old now, (in other words, REALLY OLD) and unsteady on his feet.  He’s lost some teeth, so he has the special privilege of eating canned cat food, and he sleeps most of the time, preferably on someone’s lap, where, given the choice, he would spend most of the day contentedly purring away.  When he was younger, he loved being outdoors.  He never was one to stray far, preferring to sleep curled up underneath a nearby tree; but rain, snow, sleet, or hail, he was bound to spend as much time as possible outside.  We’d joke that he had a poor memory, since even if it was pouring, he’d go outside, get soaked, then come back in, look for a lap to dry out on, and then head back out, perhaps hoping the weather had cleared.  This cycle would repeat itself over and over again until the rain stopped and he could stay outside again.  We sometimes call him Uncle Shadow, because, unlike our other cats, he’s always welcomed new kittens into our home, licking them, curling up with them, making them feel welcome, being an adopted uncle to them.  He’s been a good cat, and we’re really going to miss him when he’s gone.

Orion is our next oldest cat.  He’s 12, though he doesn’t look or act his age.  He’s black with white belly, chin, and paws.  He was named Orion because he has Orion’s belt around his waist, and he obviously was one of the Men in Black.  He’s also long- fur, like Shadow, but with a very different personality.  Orion’s always been more of an aloof individual, keeping to himself, periodically gracing his owners with a display of affection or allowing them the rare privilege of a fleeting pet.  That was until he almost lost his own life.  He came home one day with a piece of fur and skin missing from his back just at the base of his tail, the result of some tangle with one of the wild beasts of the woods.  It was about the size of a half dollar, but he kept licking his wound until the damage  expanded all the way around the base of his tail and down the back of both of his legs.  During the course of 3 years, I tried every imaginable remedy.  Elizabethan collars didn’t work at all.  He managed to use them to gouge deeper into his damaged flesh.  Nasty-tasting sprays only made him lick his wound more fiercely to get it off.  We eventually rigged up a contraption which was a sort of giant e-collar made of soft leather attached to a normal plastic e-collar to keep it from folding in around his face.  The oversized extension kept him from reaching his wound, yet collapsed enough so he could still eat and drink.  I bandaged his wounds, which were eventually confined to both legs, with thick layers of gauze and tape, so it looked like his legs were in casts.  During all this time, this aloof, unaffectionate cat had to put up with daily nursing treatments, and surprisingly he became a real Lover Boy.  I guess underneath it all, he realized I was torturing him for his own good. The change was permanent, and he now loves to sleep on my belly at night.  When I awaken, he demands loudly that I stop being so lazy and uncooperative and start giving him some good scrubs, such as he deserves.

Besides Shadow and Orion, a pretty gray and gold money cat named Sunny lives with us.  Though she’s actually 5 years old, being typically female, she tries to pretend she’s only 3, and we let her get away with it.  She has a white belly, dainty white feet, and a pretty white stripe on her face.  She also has long fur.  She is the feline queen of the family, and she knows it.  She struts around with grace and poise, just like the royalty she is.  She loves her human family, as a proper queen should love her royal subjects, but she puts all other animals into their places, especially the other cats.  Should one dare to trespass into her personal royal space, she is quick to pounce on the unsuspecting culprit.  Such an intrusion is not to be tolerated.  But to her people, she is loving and kind, though she still maintains a certain regal manner, perhaps to ensure they never fail to treat her as Her Royal Majesty deserves.  Though we allow her the illusion of grandeur, we aren’t fooled.  We see through her pompous charade to the essence of her being.  Though regal on the outside, she is soft and cuddly on the inside, wanting her share of pets, just like the others.  And so we humor her, permitting her to maintain her dignity, while giving her the love she so desperately desires.

Three cats – Shadow, Orion, and Sunny –such different personalities, but each such a special part of our family.  I know there will always be people who don’t like cats.  I was that way once.  But that was before I got to know them, and right now, I can hardly imagine life without them.  And, for those who are determined to keep their stubborn opinion about cats, they have no idea what they are missing.