Anybody who has ever had a cat knows you never use the word owns a cat, because it is the cat who does the owning. They tolerate us so long as we know our appointed roles in their lives. Tiger is our cat. I am the feeder. Jean is the mattress she sleeps on during the day. Andy is the playmate. When Tiger needs something done, she merely approaches the proper person, sits in her queen position, and waits.

Occasionally cats push the boundary a bit, and I have still not figured out if it is because they are innately dumb or deviously clever (although I tend toward the latter). For example, Tiger refuses to drink water except from a bathroom sink. To simplify our lives, we keep a water bowl full on the counter in both the upstairs and downstairs bathrooms. Usually she will jump up onto the counter (she is still amazingly agile for a 15-year old) and drink the water herself. But occasionally she will decide that standing water is just too old for her precious taste buds. Then she will perch in front of the bathroom door and wait until somebody sees her sitting there. When we see her, she will immediately enter the bathroom, assured we will follow her and replace the water.

So last night she was doing precisely that as I was passing the downstairs bathroom, so I entered the room and prepared to replace her water. But she just sat on the floor watching me.

“Don’t you want to drink?” I said. Drink is one of the few word she actually understands.

But no reaction, just stubbornly sitting there watching me. Shaking my head, I left and went upstairs. Suddenly she came bounding up the stairs and waited ahead of me at the door to the upstairs bathroom. For some reason only a feline could understand, she was in the mood for upstairs water rather than downstairs water!

Don’t even try to understand cats. You have a better chance of proving Fermat’s Last Theorem.