Cat's Outta the Bag: Dogs are Peasants ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

COME AT ME, I DARE YOU.

Let me just forewarn you: this entry looks way longer than it actually is, but it's mostly pictures of mine and Craig's dog and cat. Listen, if we can suffer through thousands of identical photos of your children, you can take a minute to suffer through the photos of our offspring.* 

It's come to my attention that I am putting a certain ~image~ out there on the Internets. How did it come to my attention, you ask? Well, allow me to demonstrate:

You bet your sweet tooshie this made you think of me.

Let's pretend your friend saw a photo of a cat in luggage and associates it with you. Except remember that I don't have to pretend because it actually happened. This might embarrass people and cause them to reevaluate the image they are putting out to the public. I'm not one of those people. If anything, I'm confused as to why the cat is being treated as a peasant. If anything, her person should have at least come up with the cash THROUGH ANY MEANS POSSIBLE to buy the entire row of seats on the plane so that the cat would have a rightful place next to the window in first class. Can't afford the whole row in first class for you and your feline? That's fine. Get your peasant arse in coach and allow your cat to reign over first class. Better yet, get the cat on a private jet so it does not have to interact with anyone else. Sound crazy? Well, whatever. Chelsea Handler did it for Chunk (a DOG, more on the caps and italics later), and that's good enough justification for me to do the same for Grizabella.

Also, turns out that photo up there is a little closer to reality than any of you probably thought. 

So, no. Those innocent "look at this cute cat" tags were not concerning. Over time, however, the posts my "friends" have tagged me in have become increasingly more alarming, and I started to wonder what people actually thought about me and my relationship with cats. Take exhibits A and B below.

Take, for example, these car seat covers. Seems like the
perfect post to tag a stable person in.

Or this synthetic cat tongue. Definitely seems like a healthy activity
that all sane people would participate in. I guess Ashley doesn't remember that
I CAN BITE OFF HER FACE.

What!? No. No, I didn't want creepy Grumpy Cat seat covers or a fake cat tongue to violate Grizabella with UNTIL YOU BROUGHT IT UP. And now yes - yes I want both of these items and I am really judging MYSELF. So thanks for that. Friends and family: Christmas ideas for Grizabella!

I wish I could say it gets better, but it doesn't. No. No, as if I weren't already humiliated enough and rethinking my entire image, this happens:

My response to all of your subtle shade. I see you. I see what you're doing.
Grizabella is holding my wrath back

Yes, Katie. I DID see this. I mean, come on, you guys. What the hell am I supposed to take away from this? How does a person go back to their day-to-day after being tagged in something like this by three separate people in one week? I know all I do is hang out with my cat and drink wine but WE DON'T NEED TO TALK ABOUT IT ON SOCIAL MEDIA. You think someone like me wants this going down? What am I supposed to tell the American public when I campaign for First Husband of the United States? What is this, some sick blackmail thing? Guess what, if it is, YOU'RE ALL TERRIBLE AT IT. If anything, you screen shot those things and unleash them to the National Enquirer in 8 years.

Having said that, I am very much interested in MosCATo and Pinot Meow and I am hoping to find some soon. Wine can only improve mine and Grizabella's conversations about the current election, and how we plan to fix it if it all goes south as First Gentleman and First Diva in 2024 IF EITHER OF US STILL HAVE RIGHTS BY THEN AND IF SHE HAS NOT BEEN REMOVED FROM OUR SAME SEX HOUSEHOLD. Plus, the names are punny, and that arouses me in a platonic way.

Besides, this "made for cats" wine is probably better for her than when I normally just split a bottle of cab sauv with her.**

Believe it or not, all of that was just leading up to the central premise of this post: the peasantry of dogs. It's not that I dislike dogs. It's just that cats are better at basically everything when compared to the canine.

That's right, I said it. I'll give you a minute to decide if you want to continue with this reader/writer relationship. I get it. Go ahead, have your moment. I'll wait.

Okay, are we over the dramatics? Good. Despite my political stance, I live in a one cat one dog household. I provided an accurately depicted photo of each of them below. Grizabella is on the left and Boots is on the right, if you needed ~clarification~.

Let's clear the air here. I agree that I did Boots wrong by not giving him the same filter as Grizabella. I also did him wrong by not waiting for him to stop running, so he just looks like a low lying white nimbus cloud in our living room. I apologize for that. In response, I will provide you with some "AWWWW" inducing photos (and simultaneously tear down the accusations that I do not take as many pictures of Boots as I do Grizabella):

Your current emotional state.

My response to your current emotional state, because I'm about
to destroy your worldview on Boots. Also the second Chelsea Handler
reference in this post. Sorry, Chelsea, but you are fosh #squadgoals. PLEASE
BE MY FRIEND.

Yes, yes. He's adorable. But here's the thing about Boots: under all that cute fluffy cotton hair and bouncy running and playful demeanor, he is a DISASTER.

Disaster.

Disaster.

LOL DISASTER. "Heeeee's a Tramp."

Before you judge me, hear me out. The reason I prefer to hold intellectual conversations with Grizabella rather than with Boots is that you always know where you stand with cats. You meet them and you know just by their initial interaction with you. There's no bull shit about it. No games. No tricks. They either like you or they don't like you and they leave you to DEAL WITH IT. And guess what, THEY DO NOT CHANGE THEIR MINDS ABOUT IT. In the first ten seconds, cats make a decision about their relationship with you and that is that. And that's pretty much how I work, because I am genetically part feline.

As an aside, cats are also real good at the whole picture thing. 

Isn't Grizabella just the best? Seriously. She is Bey.

With dogs, as I've found out first hand, it is not that easy to know where you stand with them. They play games. They are shady. And Boots is, in particular, the shadiest, and I am going to explain to you why this is in ten statements.

THE SHADIEST.

1. Boots is loyal to everyone, until Craig shows up. Boots will get excited when you enter a room and he will snuggle with you and play with you, but all that goes out the window when Craig enters the room. Because Boots is a user and a follower and views Craig as some god. Wrong. Grizabella is a god. Peasant. DO YOU KNOW 'TWAS I WHO HELD HIM IN THE CAR ON MY LAP FOR TWO HOURS WHEN CRAIG ADOPTED HIM!? And yet he imprinted on Craig. Little traitorous piece of...
2. Boots pretends to be potty trained in public, but will take advantage of the trust that's been established as soon as you leave for five minutes. That's right. He is perfect as can be when the humans are home. He goes and tap dances around the back door to alert us he needs to go out (super adorbs tbh). But here's the kicker: you leave the house for five minutes (NOT EXAGGERATING) and he has peed in the bathroom, my office, and the basement, and dropped off some timber in front of the litter box. IN FRONT OF IT. And you know what he does after that? HE EATS PART OF IT NOT KIDDING. Who do we blame for this? Tammi? Fine. THANKS FOR NOTHING, TAMMI.
3. Boots also pretends to be civilized in public, but if you turn away for one moment, chaos ensues. Take paper towels, for example. Boots loves to shred paper towels and everything resembling them. But here's the deal: he knows he isn't supposed to do it. If you toss a wad of paper towards him, he will walk away from it like it's kryptonite. Like the paper towel is going to get up and slap him right across his decent looking face. NOT KIDDING I TRIED IT JUST NOW. But as soon as you leave the room, he shreds it. IS NOTHING SACRED IN THIS WORLD? WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO IF WE CANNOT TRUST EACH OTHER!?
4. He deliberately misbehaves and betrays your trust (see: urinating and defecating when you turn your back), and then has to audacity to greet you all downtrodden and sulky and won't even look you in the eyes. Again. If you know it's wrong, then why did you do it? If he were a human, we'd label him as a sociopath, but since he's cute and fluffy he gets a pass. But cats are the villains here.
5. He eats his own poop. And then he tries to LICK YOUR FACE. OH, THE HUMANITY.
6. He violates Grizabella on a daily basis. If he were a human, he'd be tried for being a sexual predator on multiple levels. This one time, I saw him trying to procreate with Grizabella, and let me tell you - I saw TOO MUCH. And Grizabella has NEVER recovered from it.
7. He will come hurdling at you with one of his toys, only to redirect at the last minute and give the toy to Craig instead. Because he is a jerk.
8. He smells. ALL THE TIME. Even after a bath, he smells. 
9. He licks Craig's thighs loudly. This is mostly just personal preference. The sound grosses me out. 
10. He always plays the victim and never tries to be an adult about anything. Listen, my cat is not that big. She maybe weighs two more pounds than Boots MAYBE. And yet I watch her routinely knock Boots out of his seat and onto the floor, then she sits where he was laying and cleans herself. I felt bad the first few times, but eventually you gotta stick up for yourself and DOG UP, dude. 

Because I worry that Craig is going to write a response to this post and tell you all lies about Grizabella want to be fair, here are a few not so great pictures of Grizabella. 

Sometimes I worry that her close proximity to Boots is making her become less cat and more dog. We have weekly dinners to ensure this does not happen.

I'm sorry, my cat legit used to sit with me at my old
apartment when I ate dinner by myself. Take that, #haters.

I know this post is going to divide more people than my post on restrooms did, which I'm both happy and sad about. Happy because we shouldn't be fighting over where people get to poop and sad because we have real problems to think about, but cats and dogs are probably what we are all about to argue about. And that's kinda dumb.

Thank you so much for your readership and support. I hope my bullying of my dog hasn't changed that. I promise he is in a loving home with parents who think he is just the best. I REALLY DO LOVE HIM, but 1-10 up there are not dramatized accounts. Because dogs are almost always sometimes the worst.

HOWEVER, because this blog is about reinvention and intervention ~(ryan)vention~, I am hereby going to try to be a better dog person. But I need your help! Mostly on how to make Boots less of a dog and more like this:

If you liked this post (or any others), PLEASE like, comment, and share. The blog is like a sexually transmitted disease. I don't see the point of continuing that analogy because we're all adults here and I hope you got the implication. If not, please download Tindr or Grindr or Plenty o' Fish or Scruff or whatever the current "in" dating app is right now for your sexual preference and live a little (but safely). My point is: like, comment, and share. The more people reading it, the more the blog grows. The more people we have, the better (with the exception of trolls - don't share this with your friends who troll the internet).

As an example of how this blog grows with more interaction/shares, Pokemon Go kinda blew up more than I anticipated and is closing in on taking over Are You There Yankee Candle? It's Me, Ryan for most read post thus far (with 412 views in just a little over 24 hours - THANK YOU ALL). There's more power in the reader than there ever is in the writer - so if you like what you see here, please please please share it :) 

If you'd rather not be associated with me, I can respect that, too.

PS. Friends - please keep tagging me in all the cat things. At this point, the cat's out of the bag. LOL. #CATPUN #iAmStupid

*Simmer. We think your children are adorable. Most of them, anyway.
**Okay, calm down. I never gave my cat wine. She's just nosey.