Saturday, October 11, 2008

Star Rating for Your Cat

What star rating would you give your cat?

This is the age of ratings. Since we rate books, movies, restaurants, hotels, and so on and forth, why not rate our cats as well? (Of course, we have to be prepared to have our cats rate us as their owners – or guardians, for those of you who live in Boulder, Colorado.)

Actually, I got the idea when I came across the writing of William Burroughs, who apparently was a cat lover. This is what he had to say about his cat:

“I award Fletch a four-star cuteness rating. Like most qualities, cuteness is delineated by what it isn’t. Most people aren’t cute at all, or if so they quickly outgrow their cuteness…”

Now, to help you rate your cat, I’ve listed a few of the attributes you might consider. These are just suggestions. You can add to this list or make up an entirely new one.

Cuteness
Good looks
Intelligence
Sociability
Good manners
Sense of Humor
Energy level
Literacy

The lowest rating is 1 star; the highest is 5 stars. You can rate your cat on each of the above qualities, or you can come up with an overall rating—or you can do both!


Here’s how I rated Mittens, a half-Siamese cat with an intriguing midline on her face that I’ve been taking care of:

Cuteness 5 stars
No comments necessary!

Good looks 4 ½ stars
I’d say 5, but I don’t want her to get too stuck up

Intelligence 4 stars
She can open doors and she’s got me trained to feed her on command when she vibrates her tail. So I’d give her 5 stars except that she couldn’t help me fix the audio on my Skype.

Sociability 1 star
She’s getting better though she’s still rather skittish. She’s sort of okay when the neighbors knock on my door but when Pixie – that’s her real owner – comes over, she runs and dives under my bed.

Good manners 1 star
She really needs to devote a few afternoons to reading Miss Manners. It looks horrible when she – ahem, presents herself to be butt-whacked. Let’s just say that the view never improves. Not only that, she seems to prefer orienting her rear end towards me instead of her face. Never known a cat to do this.

Sense of Humor 5 stars
See above.

Energy level ½ star
She ran around pell-mell the other day—I’m sure it’s only because that was one of the few times that I had to do some catch-up sleep during the day. Otherwise, she has the energy of a slug on a winter day. It’s hard to interest her in any cat toys. Well, she is a somewhat older cat. At least she patrols the back patio on a daily basis.

Literacy 5 stars
I know that she surreptitiously reads all my books. (Shhh, don’t tell her that her secret is out.) Every time I mention books to my friends, she butts in with commentaries. It’s uncanny how she knows what I’m talking about.

I hereby give Mittens an overall rating of 5 stars! I know that doesn’t compute, but I’m never been good at math.

So, what star rating did you give your cat? I hope you gave 5 stars at least!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cuteness
20lb kuruo neko What isn't cute?

Good looks
Looks like a baby panther, always. Even at 20lbs sleek and beautiful.

Intelligence
Ano....

Sociability
Nope. No food, no go.

Good manners
In training. (He's 11.)

Sense of Humor
?

Energy level
Depends on what is there to kill. Mice, +10, but just the normal compliment of steak and toro? Well, he will run for toro. . . .

Literacy
Literacy is not your vocabulary but your ability to get your frackin' point across.
Eschewing all erudite pretensions, he sticks with "merow" which equals feed me and "heck heck barf merow" which equals now you pay for not feeding me now.

Cheryl Chow said...

A kuro neko baby panther? Cute!

He sounds very erudite to me!

Thanks for this post! Sounds like a great cat.

Cheryl

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