Monday, January 18, 2010

Notes on Cat Culture: Units of measure.

Nothing is more fundamental to understanding a foreign culture than how it measures things. Not that cats are a foreign culture. if anything humans are foreigners, especially among themselves. In some ways I would dare that they ar primitive and hopelessly backwards. evidence how subservient they are to us cats, catering to our every need. Even more incredible, a human from one part of the world often has a terrible time communicating, leading to wars and all sorts of unnecessary complications. On the other hand a cat here can communicate with a cat anywhere. A raise of a tail, drop of the ears or hunch of a back and we're talkin' baby!

A few words on the basic units of cat measure:

The basic unit of measure is the TAIL. Tails being roughly equal among Domesticateds (Sorry Bobcats). The TAIL is equal to one fully extended cat tail.

Next is the POUNCE, which is equal to about 10 TAILS as the distnce the average cat can cover in a single...well you can do the math.

From the Pounce is the YARD. That is the distance of the average backyard, from patio door to back fence. The YARD works out to an average of 10 POUNCES or 100 TAILS-give or take a few tails to the alley.

The last and most important unit of measurement in the cat world is the LINK. Picture, if you will, a cat sniffing another cat's butt. from the tip of the sniff-ee's nose to the end of the sniffer's tail is a LINK, which, coincidentlly, corresponds to a half a POUNCE. I could explain why this particular one is so important, but unless you're a cat you just won't get it.

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