Cat Ladies

Gnarls Barkley – Gone Daddy Gone

Cat Ladies are the most fascinating type of person in modern culture.

Everyone has met one of them or has heard of them. These are the people, not necessarily ladies but for generalizing purposes I will continue to use the term, that have decided that they would rather spend their days with a plethora of cats in their home than wandering around aimlessly through metal and wood like the rest of us. They tend to be downright crazy, although they have a multitude of personalities, and many of them have more than one. They also seem to have a heavy reliance on tea.

In the same way that not all rectangles are squares, not all cat owners are cat ladies. A cat lady is a very specific kind of cat owner. To them, the cat is not a pet. Instead, the cat (or cats most of the time) is a manifestation of their dissolution with their place in society or with society as a whole. Allow me to present my theory:

A cat lady begins their conscious life as an individual just as anyone else. Cat ladies are not born cat ladies. Instead, they must develop into a cat lady. There are two ways of doing so. The first, called the “Catalyst to Cat Method”, involves a disastrous event such as a tragic love affair or perhaps the death of someone close. This method is very traumatizing and usually causes the individual to evolve into a cat lady at an alarming rate as they attempt to replace the loss with a cat. The second, called the “Metamorphosis Method”, involves either a series of small events or stems from the individuals’ inability to locate a place for themselves in society. Eventually, as they lose faith in mankind’s ability to generate happiness for them, they begin to replace society itself with cats. In this way, they create a living society that they can shape however they see fit, and it usually involves many, many cats.

Cats are ideal for this type of person as they are, for one, living. In addition, they are independent creatures that will also interact with others. You can see them thinking, judging, and analyzing. This allows the cat lady to feel a sense of being one of many, while at the same time inventing what the cat is thinking, as the cat cannot express itself in our language. Since they cannot express their anger or dissatisfaction short of attacking a creature much larger than it (which is not a common response), the cat lady can (sometimes correctly) deduce anything they want about the cat or cats.

The issue at hand is that once an individual becomes a cat lady, through either of the methods above, they enter into a cycle. They were lonely and unable, for one reason or another, to find satisfaction with society. They then replace society with cats. Now that they are the ruler of their own kingdom, they become accustomed to this status and, when they do venture outside, are appalled that they do not hold the same status. They then yearn to return to their own society and improve upon the flaws they saw in our society. Rinse and repeat.

What do the cats think of this? Are they content being ruled by a turncoat of humanity? If I could venture a guess, they probably think of their predicament in much different terms.