Perspectives: a cat, a Barbie, and humanity

An (almost) anonymous donor recently sent me an odd gift, which sat awkwardly in my living room. A Barbie. I mean, really! Barbie! I didn't know what to do with it, so there it sat.

Until one day my cat suddenly realized that an alien form had entered her domain. Curious, she jumped up next to it for some investigation. The lack of response probably pissed her off, and realizing that she was bigger than it, and it was possible prey (my interpretation, granted), she bitch-slapped that poor innocent Barbie.

Barbie flew through the air and fell the equivalent of about 2 stories, so she should have been okay. But she landed funny, rolled a bit, and was clearly not doing well. Tempest, not content with the destruction she'd wreaked so far, jumped down to check out Barbie's status.



And watching her sniff around her molded plastic prey who looked somewhat human, I had an odd moment where I realized that though Tempest loves me, she is a carnivore. If it weren't for the size discrepency in my favor, I have no doubt she'd love me, but more in the sense of loving her next meal. Not the one I put in the bowl, but me, in her belly.

She's a cat. That's what they do. At least that is what they do when they have prey (other than the doomed Barbie) instead of food in their dish.

Humans might be busy destroying the earth and all of the resident species at the moment, but seems like a stroke of luck (good luck for humans, the worst possible for any other species) that humans survived at all. We're weak. We're slow. We are handicapped by our dull senses of smell, sight, and hearing. WTF?