Comic Strip of the Day

CSotD: Ludi-crous

A&J

As I've noted before, Arlo & Janis's cat, Ludwig, is a realistic feline. I'd go so far as to say that he is the most realistic pet in all of comicdom, and part of that is evident in his facial expressions today. Cats have an innocent ability to live in the moment that dogs do not, and, after a backward glance, Ludwig seems perfectly resigned to being carried away from the scene of the crime.

Which is not to say that he won't head right back there as soon as he is released, completely unaware that removing him was the intention. If you kick a dog off your bed at night, he will feel chastened and won't return for at least half an hour if he comes back at all that night. If you pick up the cat and drop him from your bed to the floor, he'll bounce right back up with "Heh. You won't believe what just happened" expression.

As for this particular kitty crime, I'm lucky in that the only cat I've had was a rescued alley cat. After his time in the streets, he was an excellent mouser but he absolutely no interest in sharing and I think only brought one "gift" to my feet in the years we had him. This was fine with me.

But I remember one evening when I was working in my basement office and heard some scurrying in the laundry room next door. I tilted back to see Kitty playng "catch and release, catch and release, catch and release" under the tubs. Being nowhere near as kind a man as Arlo — or at least being as kind but not to the same animals — I swung the door shut and went back to work.

Later, I opened the door and the cat walked into the office with an innocent air, having left behind no evidence of his recent activities. I attribute this not to a sense of shame or of discretion on his part but rather to a deep desire not to share. Plus an insanely short memory.

Previous Post
Bill O’Reilly e-mail bombs Mike Thompson
Next Post
New Yorker cartoonist Leo Cullum passes at age 68

Comments 3

  1. Perfect analysis all around, Mike. I was just thinking about feline “gifts” yesterday while sorting through our Ireland snapshots. The way we knew that the cottage cat had accepted our return was her nighttime gift of a disemboweled field mouse. Just outside the front door. Where one of us was sure to step on it with our first step out in the morning.

  2. I disagree about the “insanely short memory.” What we have here is complete indifference to the possibility that the human is in charge, or has any opinions of significance.
    As they say, dogs may have owners but cats have staff.

  3. You may be right, Mark. I never got the sense that the cat gave a damn what we thought one way or the other, as long as the food was served on schedule and the house was kept warm. And, yes, Sherwood, the only “gift” I ever got from Kitty was left on the welcome mat. I’m not sure it was a gift, though. Perhaps it was just something he wanted to bring inside later, to snack on while we watched TV.

Comments are closed.

Search

Subscribe to our newsletter

Get a daily recap of the news posted each day.