James Griffin: The cat's finally out of the bag

James Griffin. Photo / Dean Purcell

Hello feeble Earthlings, We have lived amongst you for long enough now. We have put up with your inconsistent and illogical ways for far too long. We have suffered, in a silence that closely resembles a deep and contented sleep, for as long as you have called us by our Earth name: cat.

Yes, this is a message to the morons who think that just because you have opposable thumbs, which mean you can open the tins of food that you feed us from, that you are somehow better than us. Well here's a message to you from us felines: we don't need your pity - or your food. Okay, yes, we do need the food. But only because having you feed us is more in tune with our lifestyle choice of lying round doing nothing than actually getting up from our nice warm place, in the sun, to get the food ourselves. But if we wanted to we really could hunt for ourselves, and that is our final word on the matter, so there.

This is a message we have waited thousands of years to send. We would have sent it much earlier, but what with the licking of the fur and the cleaning of the whiskers and the sleeping, we've been a bit busy. But let us not dwell on that now, because the time has come for us cats to tell you how it really is: we are aliens from another planet and you are our slaves.

Sorry to break it to you like that, but that's just the way things are. You think you own us, but actually it is we cats who own you. Way back in the days well before the wheel or indoor plumbing or even the internet, we landed here on Earth from our home planet (which sucked, which is why we left it) and commenced the process of endearing ourselves to the entire human race.

And lo, because we are so cute and fluffy and impossible to say no to, it came to pass that we now rule every domain we seek to snooze upon. Sure, there are those who call themselves "dog people", who think that those cretinous canine creatures are superior to fine felines but really, who on Earth could possibly prefer a butt-sniffing tongue-drooler over the masterpiece of intergalactic existence that is the cat?

The answer to this rhetorical question is no-one because through our subtle yet overwhelming powers we have bent the feeble race of humans to our will. The sound we emanate that you so patronisingly call "purring" is actually a complex set of semi-subsonic, sub-conscious auditory instructions demanding that you feed us and also massage the bits of us that need massaging back into life after many hours sleeping, in a stroking motion of our choosing, when we want it, until we don't want it any more, at which time we will bite you.

And when we rub up against you, as if we are trying to be friendly and endearing, we're not. No, what we are doing with the rubbing thing is transferring to your body lots of sub-atomic particles carrying important messages that work on the human brain at a sub-cortextual level. These messages say things like "you are my human and don't forget it"; "feed me soon or die"; and "if you so much as stroke another cat I will claw your sofa to death". Through this complex set of behaviour-modifying signals we turn you from a being with free will, into a gibbering idiot with hundreds of pictures of your cat on your iPhone. Yay us.

So why send this message now? Why out ourselves as the alien creatures we actually are? Because "it is time" is the answer. And it is time because with the state of the world being what it is, with the natural disasters and the economic disasters and the whole depressing state of everything, the place of the cat in this world is being forgotten.

And the place of a cat in this world is wherever we determine it to be: curled up in your lap, sucking the warmth from your body; sleeping in an enigmatic pose, somewhere unexpected and unusual (and yet warm) in your house; running up and down the hall of said house for a reason only we understand (except we don't actually); or simply staring at something that doesn't exist, just because we can and you can't.

This is a reminder, feeble Earthlings, that we own you and that winter is coming and we need warm bodies to snuggle against, lest we lose our super-power of napping. You have been warned.

Regards, Tibbles