No recession for Bumpy
8th August 2009

Researchers in England claim that a cat manipulates its owner to feed it by miaowing in the same register and tone as a newborn baby. The argument is that the cat appeals to our deepest mothering instincts, compelling us to reach for the Whiskas.

This is rubbish. As any cat owner knows, we feed our cats because if we didn’t they would make life hell for us. What they have in common with babies is a talent for persistent aggravation and an unerring faith that their needs will be met. I know this because I live with Bumpy.

Bumpy (real name Felix) appears to base his worth and status within our household on the old legal maxim that possession is nine tenths of the law. He possesses our property more ardently than any other member of the household, spending at least 20 hours of every day asleep on the sofa in the living room, and the remaining 4 riding shotgun on a fence rail outside the laundry window, which is permanently ajar as his drawbridge and portcullis.

I warm slowly to dogs but have always lost my heart to cats. Bumpy is neither the most intelligent nor useful cat I have ever owned. Owned? I should say ‘butlered’, for we are mere servants to our cats.

The cat of my childhood, Tiger, was a swashbuckling tyrant. One-eyed and ragged-eared he ruled every other living thing on the property – human and creature. Tiger could snap a rat’s spine with a casual toss of his head. He could reduce a henhouse to a nervous twitter just by peering around the doorjamb and I once saw him render a full grown possum into carpet in a matter of minutes.

Bumpy’s talents lie elsewhere, just beyond the reach of human understanding. He neither hunts nor fights. He does not breed (but that’s not his fault) or bristle. He is paunchy and so tremendously flat-footed that when he gallops down the hallway it sounds like the cavalry, a trait that earned him his nickname.

Despite these failings he maintains the insouciantly casual genius of an idiot savant – minus the savant.

To his credit Bumpy is neither neurotic nor evil-tempered, both of which can be failings in cats. I once shared a student hovel in Leith Street, Dunedin with a pumpkin-coloured cat named Demolition who was so terrified of the world he spent his days hiding in the mailbox. He died of a heart attack one morning when the postman delivered the power bill.

Bumpy’s single expression of ill will is towards the venus fly trap that occupies a windowsill next to his favourite sofa. He and the fly trap are food chain rivals, and evidence proves the fly trap is rather better than Bumpy at catching flies. Bumpy retaliates by raiding the water dish in which the fly trap’s plant pot resides. He appears to understand that the fly trap, being of swamp origin, will suffer if the dish is dry. Standing on his hind legs Bumpy can just reach the windowsill to lap the water in the dish. If caught in the act he will desist and gallop from the scene, grinning.

Bumpy’s sole talent and saving grace is the charm, unique to cats, of relaxation. With the unerring persistence of a heat-seeking missile he pursues me through the house until I sit. In seconds he has settled into my lap, his head stretched up towards my chest, his gaze somewhere between condescension and rapture, willing me to stroke him.

Perhaps the English researchers were referring to a cat’s purr, for who can resist stroking the softly purring head of a cat? It touches something very deep. It calms and soothes and shoulders away the cares of the world.

We live in difficult times, pitched upon the seas of economic recession, social disorder and environmental decay. Our lives are filled with uncertainty. But there is no recession for Bumpy and each time I recline in my armchair he will be there to continue educating me in life’s true lessons.