The nine lives of Wazoo the cat
Book Review
We Are The Cat: Life Through the Eyes of the Royal Feline
By Terry Bain
Harmony Books
Crown Publishers
Hardbound $16
By Bill Duncan
Page Turners/Currents Magazine August 31, 2006
If Terry Bain, the author of the best selling humor book "You Are A Dog," thought he could equally capture the mind of his cat, Swiper, for a book, entitled "We Are The Cat," he underestimated the independence of Swiper his household feline. In fact, Swiper resisted his writing the story and says so in a note to the reader:
"We are not inclined to allow him to write a book about us. It isn’t that we don’t agree with much of what he has written about dogs
…but we are not in favor of a book that does not take us seriously.
Therefore we do not wish him to speak for us."
Like it or not, Bain’s new book, just released by the Random House subsidiary, speaks with the mind of a cat. And like it or not, Bain tells funny stories about them.
I know because the cover photo of Swiper, I believe in my heart of hearts, is an offspring of an All American cat named Wazoo once the pet of my daughter, Margaret-Mary — a stray kitten she picked up from the Douglas County Animal Shelter in Roseburg. Reading Bain’s book, I am even more convinced Wazoo sired Swiper, perhaps during one of his nine lives.
I know Wazoo had nine lives because one rainy winter day, dressed in a suit and tie, I drove out of my driveway only to see Wazoo smashed on Garden Valley Road, the kill zone for any animal venturing beyond the safety of the edge of the road. It would be the same roadway where my two young sons would shortly catch the school bus for Jo Lane Junior High School.
I couldn’t let them find Wazoo smashed in the road, so I came back into the house, changed into mud clothes and boots, grabbed a shovel and a pastic bag, scooped up Wazoo’s remains and went up the hill to dig a grave in the black mud. Once Wazoo was buried, I returned to the house, dressed again for work and was sitting on the stairs tying my shoes when Wazoo jumped in my lap. I have no idea whose cat I buried, but I do understand now why Swiper calls us humans Lap people.
Cats love laps. Swiper said she can’t convince Bain that the word Swiper means nothing to him, except when she is called by that name to dinner. Cats don’t have names for other other cats or other animals, including people. Everything is identified by smell. It is a fact that when a cat rubs up against you, the cat is marking you with its scent, thus claiming ownership. Laps just don’t understand this, Swiper says.
Nor do they grasp that owning a cat can decrease the occurrence of high blood pressure and other illnesses. Or that by simply stroking a cat it can relieve stress.
Cats can sleep anywhere and on average, a cat will sleep for 16 hours a day. Swiper reveals some of the favorite nap places — other than a Lap’s lap. For example, she explains, "When a car has recently pulled into the driveway…the hood can be quite warm enough for a decent nap." What she has trouble understanding is why Bain gets so upset about the footprints she leaves behind on the car’s hood.
She knows that Bain gets annoyed when she wants out or in the door that only a Lap hand can open. She wonders why Bain hasn’t bothered to inspect the house across the road that has a kitty door in the big door. Doesn’t he know that Sir Isaac Newton is not only credited with the laws of gravity but is also with inventing the cat flap?
Purring does not always indicate that a cat is happy. Swiper reveals that "the purr is a meditation technique" and if you feel a purring cat on your lap it conveys a strong sense of security and comfort.
Humans are slow to recognize all the wonders cats bring to a life. It was the ancient Egyptians who first tamed cats and considered them gods.
Bain has an unusual talent of getting inside the mind of his character, be it a dog or a cat, to tell their story. Bain is a freelance writer who lives in Spokane, Wash. with his cat, Swiper, his wife, Sarah and three children and of course two dogs.
Swiper states very plainly she does not think much of the two dogs, whom she calls a Day Dog and Night Dog. She claims that if it were not for cats, the world would not exist as it is. "In return," she says, "we ask only for a spot on the sofa when the sun slants through during the day, a place full of warmth and light…and a lap to be filled up with us, to be fullfilled by a human hand scatching just behind our ears."
Swiper got a wee bit of mention in Bain’s best selling book, "You Are A Dog," but only in the form of disdain when the dog says "…a cat only demands and never gives." Swiper hopes that lie is finally put to rest.
(Bill Duncan is editor of The Senior Times. He also writes a weekly column every Thursday on the Opinion Page of the News-Review. He is a confessed Ailurophile — the word cat lovers are officially called.)