Did you know.....

A flea can jump up to 165 times it's own height.

Wow. The guy who got 165 fleas to stand on top of each other should be really proud of that discovery.

Man I dislike fleas. I owned cats my whole childhood and the one thing that I hated about cats, was the fleas. I remember once my house got so infested, that I would put my feet on the floor to get out of bed, and instantly about 10 fleas would be on my legs.

Actually that’s not the only thing I hated about owning a cat. They don’t give (you guessed it) a flying rats clacker where they shit and piss.

In fact the whole reason I don’t own a cat today is because of what I experienced with the last cat I ever owned.

Now don’t get me wrong. Well you can if you want, but I am an animal lover. If I donate to charity, it is most often an animal rights type organization. But I really didn’t much enjoy owning this cat.

The poor bastard had a crap life. At about 1 year old it tried to pounce on a moving car. Ended up with it’s bottom jaw split right down the centre. Had to have a plate in it’s hip. But that’s my point. I so didn’t want to see the cat die, that I cost my mother hundreds of dollars to keep it alive. Ironically, only a few years later I got it put down. It wasn’t even sick or dying. I just didn’t want to put up with it’s shit any more.

I mean that literally. Our cats lived inside pretty much all of the time. They came in whenever they wanted. They went out whenever they wanted. They each learned to scratch at the front door and one of us would get up and open it for them. The thing that made me decide to have it put down was the last time it scratched at the front door to come in. At the time I didn’t know it would be the cats last time. Either did it.

Anyways, it scratched, and in accordance with our agreement, I let it in. It then proceeded to crap in the corner of the room and then went straight back outside again. Yep. It came inside to crap. So I had it put down.

Actually, funny thing about that. My best mate came with me to have it put down. Not for moral support. He was just hangin out with me at the time. While we were waiting for the deed to be done, he turned to me and said: “At least we’ll get the chance to find out if there’s enough room to swing one.”

Strange thing about that story is that I always thought cats were so clean. Same cat, and pretty much every cat I owned all acted the same way. What I mean is how well, and how regularly they groomed themselves. As I said before, I owned cats all my childhood. And more often than not, we had two cats at a time. So I had plenty of opportunity to study them.

They have a bathing routine, not unlike humans. I remember sitting there listening to music one afternoon and just watching this cat groom itself. They always start at the same place. The front paws.

They meticulously clean in between each ‘toe’ and scrape the dirt out from under their claws. Makes sense considering it’s the part of their body they’re about to clean their face with.

So next in line is the front legs and particularly under the armpit area. Then the chest. Once that section is done, its onto the head, including the ears. After the head comes the back and shoulders sort of area. And then down the body. Of course all that’s left before the tail is the back legs, and everyone’s favourite part, the genital area. One of my favourite jokes is the one where two guys are sitting there watching a cat ‘clean’ it’s genital area. One guy says to his mate: “I wish I could to that” to which his mate replies: “Ya better pat the cat first”.

Well like I said before; I think it’s funny.

Last, but not least, the cat cleans its tail. Probably the most elegant part of the routine. There’s really something to be said for the grace with which a cat controls it’s tail. So maybe 20 minutes later, this cat has cleaned every inch of it’s body from top to tail. And then you know what it did next? It started again. Went through the whole routine right over again.

I thought: “Well dang. This has got to be the cleanest cat I ever saw”. Then I thought about it some more, and I realised that this cat was not clean at all. It’s just covered itself in cat spit!