Since I posted about the rosary two days ago, here’s a rosary funny.
It was February 2006 when I got hungry for prayer again, and every day I was asking (at first) for the grace to pray it again the next day. Kind of a recursive prayer request, but it helped. God looks out for fools, drunks, the United States of America, and me (because I guess I amuse Him.)
At any rate, I found the most convenient time to pray was right after I set my then-three-year-old up with the television. He was allowed two TV programs per day, and after I got him set up, I’d head upstairs, get my rosary, and sit by the window to pray.
Since prayer is good, it’s not a bad assumption that the enemy wouldn’t like it. Within a couple of days, I began to be harassed to stop praying.
In the form of my cat.
Who would immediately run from wherever she was in the house, get on my lap, and start head-butting me.
Shortly, the second cat began to do the same. In fact, they’d compete to see who could get to me first in order to disrupt my quiet time of prayer.
I said to my Patient Husband, “Cats are enemies of prayer.” He didn’t believe me.
Of course, eventually I figured out the secret. Cats are smart in a self-centered way. They’d figured out that when certain things happened, I would sit for fifteen to twenty minutes not doing anything with my hands. They had an idea of something I could do with my empty lap and my nearly-still hands.
Their cue? Once just for the sake of science, with no intention of praying, I turned on the TV, went upstairs to my bedroom, and picked up the rosary.
Two cats appeared.
Our new cat? She’s already figured it out for herself too.
I’m all for a good supernatural thriller, but I’m pretty sure Satan, or the Basement Cat, had nothing to do with this one.
see more Lolcats and funny pictures
While my cause is less noble, my cats won’t allow me to get the APA done. I usually collate and stuff envelopes while sitting on the floor in the living room, and they take this as an invitation to 1) sit on the contribution copies, 2) roll around in front of me, 3) rub their faces on the stacks of issues, 4) climb into my lap, or 5) bat around the little curly rolls of paper that peel off the adhesive strips of the envelopes. I’m not allowed to work on the computer or change the sheets on the bed in peace, either.
My dad tells me that “all cats are enemies of knowledge.” They know there’s knowledge written on paper, so they have to get between you and the knowledge. 🙂
But that proves all the more that it had nothing whatsoever to do with my kitties being teh ebil. **vbg** At least they’re not horking hariballs on the APA. I’ve found hairballs horked on my manuscripts.
Don’t give them ideas. 🙂 They already hork right in the path of traffic so I’ll step in it.
In the years before computers, my old cat Ichi would always try his hardest to keep me away from my electric typewriter. He’d either block the keyboard, or, when I locked him out of the bedroom, he’d wail outside the door until the typing stopped.
This is based on a much older story, with several variations. My favourite is much lighter, but this has the main parts.
http://www.phil.unt.edu/~hargrove/tail.html
My dog prevents my wife from doing anything if he believes she is going to leave. (I know you’re talking about cats, but it should be okay because we believe we was raised by cats before he was rescued :-)).
He is a mid-sized dog with acute separation anxiety. Whenever my wife has to rush around the house to do something, he associates it with her leaving. He gets very nervous, tail goes to the ground and follows her everywhere. There have been many times when she turns around quickly only to be tripped up by him.
Topic duly changed to “pets.”
The poor little guy! And dogs can’t predict the future, either, so it’s hard for him not knowing whether she’ll be gone for half an hour or the whole day or six months, etc.
My Patient Husband used to have the same problem with our first cat before we were married. She was absolutely attached to him and when he’d leave in the morning, she’d be alone all day. She’d get under his feet even though at first she was smaller than his feet. 🙂 After we got married, she was intensely jealous of me, but after a while she realized he could still be her human. Then one day, he went on an overnight trip for a job interview. When I turned off the light, she jumped on the bed and let off this WAAAAAIL as if to say, “You always go get him — but you FORGOT! Where is he?”
Darn that LOLcats website you have to right is addictive…I’ve been looking at it since I posted. My boss isn’t going to be too happy 🙁
You’re the second person who’s told me that this week! Mai kidz wub to speekz LOLcat.
My cat will ignore me all day, until I kneel down beside the bed to pray. THEN he wants my attention. Glad to know it’s not just my cat!
If you ever try the rosary, the cat will jump on the beads, too. That’s either a plus or a minus. 🙂
in college i occasionally had to go study on campus due to lack of doors in my studio apartment to force my cat to allow me to read or type. doors and earplugs… sometimes a cat owner’s best friend.
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