The Big Yawnnn...

Kalia has an odd sense of humour and unfortunately, not much time for books...he is therefore neither an EduCat nor a LiteraryCat...

All this can be excused, however, as his greatest feat of derring-do remains his claim to lasting fame...at the age of 8 weeks, when I found him on the street, he was staring down a terrier 10 times his size, no exaggeration. A tiny 8-week-old black-and-white scrap of a kitten with his fur bristling, bushy tail held upright with the tip curling into a question mark, he wasn't to know that the terrier was tentatively wagging its tail and probably only wanted to sniff and check him out. For sure, Kalia wasn't having any of that.

Of course, I got out of the car as quietly as possible so as not to scare him onto the middle of the road and oncoming traffic, and silently snuck up on him from behind, swooping down and grabbing him with both hands like a falcon. He was not amused, nor reassured, and scratched me up good and proper in the car. His fur didn't stop standing on end for the entire ride home, and he didn't really settle till a good hour after being fed.

Yes, he was scared out of his wits, and that's probably what has made him one of the quietest, most placid, even soporific felines I have ever known. Nothing fazes him any longer; what could possibly be more traumatic than that early encounter with a huge furry canine? I suspect, though, that it might be a DNA-induced congenital laziness, from the sleepy slow-motion way in which he moves...when he moves.

There is one thing that does hit the spot for him, though, and that is mealtimes. Twice a day, Kalia vroomvrooms into Schumacher mode and zips around the house, describing a defined, never-changing clockwise circuit from the living room through the dining room to the kitchen door and back. He ducks past the coffee table from the left, then dashes past the dining table, stops briefly at the kitchen door, meows piteously and dashes back, from the right, mind you, to the starting point. Then off again past the coffee table...and so on.

This whole routine is repeated upto 20 times, twice a day. Without fail. The floor tiles are finally beginning to show signs of wear, and it's not like he won't be fed...but still, he seems to think a reminder is required. Twice a day. Every day. Or maybe this is part of his cleverly devised health regimen. Just enough of a workout to put an edge on the appetite. That's all the excercise he wants. And since he has a short, stocky sumo-wrestler type build and hardly any neck, his belly hangs real low, just inches off the floor. And lately even lower. Hrmm. Maybe I need to extend feeding time by a few minutes, so he gets an extra 5 laps of the Indy circuit each feed-time? Now, there's a thought...

Take a toothbrush, for instance...

I remember a time when a toothbrush came in one size, one style and 4 colours: red, blue, green and yellow. And everyone wanted the yellow.

Today, your toothbrush is an extension of your personality. It tells visitors to your bathroom a whole lot about you, your last relationship, your worst nightmare, your borderline schizoid tendencies and your favourite 3 am snack. It also defines your status, and hints at the health of your bank balance. Does yours have a flourescent stripe down the side and its own personal jet? Well then, you're not hip enough to make the grade, sorry.

Today's toothbrushes separate the men from the women from the girls from the boys from the wimps. Besides, they not only brush your teeth, they also feed the kids/pets, pay your bills and call the dentist for you. Or they should, considering how savvy they look.

They come in a plethora of ergonomic and aerodynamically superior shapes, from supersleek curves...two and three per handle...or a wiggle or two or five at the top, just before the bristles. There are striped sporty-looking bi-coloured ones, there’s contrast stripes and sparkles, bi-coloured bristles, tricky ones with longer bristles at the top to reach behind teeth, longer bristles at the back to reach behind ears…you name it, somebody thought of it. I'd really like to meet the people that design them. They must have chronically warped minds.

Meanwhile, I've just been toothbrush shopping. I have a whole new wardrobe of them; a 3-colour-bristle one for teeth, gums and plaque (evidently, each colour knows what its job spec. is), blue with a green stripe, green with a blue stripe and orange dots...hey, three new toothbrushes is a real splurge for me...I usually wait till all the bristles fall out before even considering buying a new one. But hell, I'm feeling extravagant. Next week, I go shopping for dental floss.