Brain Cells on Parade

If you have kids, you’re probably familiar with the book Everyone Poops by Taro Gomi. The title tells you exactly what you’re in for should you start leafing through. It’s a children’s tour of defecation throughout the animal kingdom, containing such illuminating statements as “An elephant makes a big poop” and “a mouse makes a tiny poop.” Frankly, I think it’s a terrific book for kids. But I’m here to talk about cats, so let’s move on.

I want to run this by my fellow cat owners custodians: Do your cats get all revved up after they poop? Most of the cats I’ve had seem to regard pooping as one of the absolute highlights of their day. In fairness, there have been a few times when pooping has been the highlight of MY day, so I’m not criticizing here, just observing. They will sometimes emerge from the cat box absolutely energized, running about, seeming positively overjoyed. Is that your experience as a cat custodian? Or are they just airing themselves out? Or is it what it seems like – they just feel great?

I will close with a soliloquy from Shaketaile’s play, Felis Caesar:

Friends, felines, litter-mates, lend me your rears;
I come to bury my turds, not to display them.
The evil kitties do is their birthright,
The good is oft a happy accident,
Or naught but a dream dreamt by foolish mortals.
So let it be with Fluffy. The noble tabby
Hath told you Fluffy was a good kitty
If so, it were a grievous fault
And grievously hath Fluffy answered it
For Fluffy is a bad kitty.
And so are they all, all bad kitties.
He hath brought many a curtain to ruins
And left many a foul paste upon the shoes of men
Did this make Fluffy a good kitty?
When humans have been lonely, Fluffy hath slept.
Goodness should be made of sweeter stuff.
Yet the tabby says he was a good kitty.
O judgment! We are surely brutish beasts,
To whom men have lost their reason.
I sleep upon a pillow there with Fluffy
And I must go there now as it is my whim so to do.