Monday, August 25, 2008

Stuffonmycat.com

So I was introduced to a website the other day that is really quite disturbing. It's called stuffonmycat.com. It's a site for catlovers. Catlovers with cameras. Catlovers who put things on their cats and take pictures. Catlovers who put things on their cats, take pictures, and then post them online for other cat lovers to view whenever they're feeling blue. One of my coworkers, a catlover, goes to this site whenever she is feeling down. Then she attaches "cute" kitty pictures to emails when she corresponds with her coworkers.

The pictures are bizarre. I saw a cat with a pancake on it's head. I saw a cat with a helmet (complete with ear holes) made out of an orange peel. I saw a cat with a plate of half-eaten food placed on the cat's side while the cat was sleeping. Truly remarkable. Not the cats, but the people who take the pictures. Better yet, those who go view them.

What's better than the pictures though are the "fun" little captions.

Picture a cat, wearing a small apron, with various kitchen utencils in each pocket, and an oven mitt on each hand (er, paw). The caption above reads (you're probably supposed to read it aloud in a little "Kitty" voice)....."If I have to make one more cupcake I'm gonna scream".
True enough, the cat does, in fact, look annoyed. Downright ticked off in fact. Maybe he's been forced, by a mentally abusive cat owner, to make one too many cupcakes. Or maybe, just maybe, he feels completely stupid wearing that darn apron with the tiny rolling pin and wooden spoon!

Or another...

A gray and white cat with an unsolved Rubix cube sitting on it's back. The caption reads, "Peanut is stumped".
Oh the hilarity.
The cat, once again, looks bugged. But, I pause to think. Is it because the Rubix cube is too hard to solve? Is it because the Rubix cube is on the cat's back and prevents him from sleeping 23 and a half hours a day? Is it because the cat knows very well how to solve the puzzle but lacks the opposable thumbs necessary to manipulate the cube? Or is it because he's tired of being called Peanut?

Or, the sleeping orange cat who seems completely unaware of the little black paper top hat that is balancing carefully on his head. 'nuff said. No need to even mention the caption. Oh, why not? "That's one classy top-hat, if I do say so myself". I get the feeling this one should be read with a tried and true adult male cat voice with a touch of "Foghorn-Leghorn".

I wish I had thought of this twelve years ago. I would have had the perfect picture. In fact, I could have done multiple pictures with our family cat Cookie.

I came driving up to my parents house one afternoon and two of my sisters were on the driveway looking very disturbed. When I got out of the car, they motioned for me to come over to them. "We think something's wrong with Cookie", one of them said, with obvious cat-lover emotion welling up inside. "We've been calling him and whistling for him, but he won't come". Well that was not like friendly Cookie to not respond when my sister Sherra would vibrate her tongue off the roof of her mouth in a high pitched shrill. When I looked in the back of the garage, I saw Cookie stretched out on the garage floor, with his eyes open and his mouth wide open, and one front paw in the air. He was obviously stiff as a board.
"Something might be wrong with Cookie" I informed them.

Now, if I'd had a digital camera and incredible forethought, I could have taken about fifty pictures right then and there.
Caption 1: "That antifreeze sure tasted good!"
Caption 2: (with Cookie placed in tight leather cat suit holding a whip in his front paws) "Halle Berry's got nothing on this Catwoman! Rawr!"
Caption 3: (with a little brown hamster sitting on Cookie's head) "Jerry finally got the better of Tom"

Sorry if I offended any catlovers with my story. You're right, it would have been terribly rude and insensitive for me to do something like that to poor Cookie...

Would've been way more respectful to pose him for those pictures while he was still alive. Too bad I didn't. Could've made Jordan's (who sits a few cubicles away from my office) day.

1 comment:

Jenny Moore said...

Great post Sean!!
I agree with you though on how disturbing it is what people do to their animals...including all the silly clothes!