Oops.
just kidding...here's what I've really learned and would like to share with my peeps!!!
1. Okay. So reason #1 is easy because of what time of year it is. From what I've seen, humans control the weather much better from the inside of a house. Once that weather hits the great outdoors, it's wild and uncontrollable. So from my experience, staying inside where they make the good heat in the winter and the good chilly air in the summer is where a smart cat hangs. Oh, and unless something goes horribly wrong, there is way less of the wet stuff inside. And we all know how much we cats hate the wet stuff anywhere near our fur or paws.
2. We are less delicious inside the house. Make no mistake, I am a cat of experience. I have lived a lot of crazy places. But the only place I've lived where the other creatures didn't constantly eyeball me like a tasty SuperBowl snack, was in the house. I can say a lot about how Alanna yells at me but she's never sized me up with a bottle of BBQ sauce in her hand. And I know she's very fond of BBQ sauce.
3. Sometimes other animals don't want to eat you, they just want to kick your butt and take your stuff. That includes raccoons that eat your food. Other cats that want to sleep on whatever stupid bed you made for the night. Or the mean two legged kind who'll do anything to push you around and have a good laugh doing it. And that brings me to:
4. Humans behave better in the house. Because just like the weather, sometimes when they get on the other side of the door something takes over them and they don't behave well at all. I've seen others of my kind living out of the house who've been burned, kicked, and well, a lot of other really bad things that a cat just shouldn't have to live through. And yes sadly, sometimes they don't live through it. So let Alanna dress me in funny clothes and not let me eat an entire box of super crunchy fishy treats in one sitting. She's still pretty chill on the important things and sometimes it even feels like she might even be looking out for me.
5. You can trust the cat food in the house. This might sound like a small thing but I've seen cats eat stuff that seemed quite delicious at the time and then BAM- without any other reason they got sick or (gulp) WORSE. But the food in the house never lets me down.
6. This reason is very near and dear to my heart. A cat can get really sick or injured outside of the house. And I know what you're thinking. Cats can get sick or injured inside too. But Dude, I'm telling you, it's way easier outside the house. There are just so many sharp things and pokey stuff and holes in the ground you never see coming. And then this can happen too. A cat I met on the road told me about getting to the outside only to get stuck in some other inside where he had never been before and then he couldn't get back out and then he got so hungry he thought something really bad was going to happen. He was so grateful for the human who found him even though the human yelled at him and threw a shoe at his head. Trust me, that's nothing to be grateful for. But like he said, "Free is free."
And if you're wondering why #6 means more to me it's because I got hurt outside the house. And I can't even tell you how because I was so tired and hungry I can't even say for sure what happened to me. I might have gotten poked by a sharp thing or chomped on by a hungry foe. I just don't know. But what made it worse was that whatever happened to me, nobody was there to notice. So nobody was there to take care of me. And I kept getting sicker and sicker and pretty soon my paw didn't work so well. Still doesn't. The only thing that saved me was being brought to the great folks at Feline Friends. Just think, if that hadn't happened, I probably wouldn't be here and you'd miss out on all my wisdom and prose.
aren't ya glad that didn't happen?
me too!
So humans tell your kitties and kitties, listen to your humans: In the house is where it's at, and that's where you should be!!! Now go get that chair. You know the one. The one right next to the window where the sun shines just right and you can see your bowl out of the corner of your half closed eye and a human stops by on occasion to pat your head and tell you that you're a good kitty. Yeah. In the house is pretty cool.
So until later, Peeps, this is Skunk the Cat signing off for a nap!
FOUR PAWS IN PEACE
