Esoteric Bowl

Have you ever had one of those moments when you think that you behave one way and then you catch yourself behaving another? I recently had such a moment and it surprised me to learn that I behave in such a way.

You see, for the past several months I’ve been feeding the stray orange cat that hangs-out on the property. Each day when I check the mail, the cat comes running towards me from one area or another as if she has been waiting for me. She looks up towards me and meows while she does a slow prance and rub around my ankles. I’m sure she only does this because she knows I feed her, but it’s nice to be recognized and greeted even if it is by a stray cat that has food on her mind.

As I walk around the building towards the door, she walks a foot or two ahead of me and occasionally glances back as if to make sure I am there. Sometimes she suddenly stops, which means that I sometimes accidentally kick her in my walk. She looks up at me as if it’s my fault, and I look down to blame her in return. We both seem to write it off as incidental contact and continue towards the door.

As I prepare the food in her bowl, she patiently waits with two paws on the stoop and watches my every movement. It is during this time that we often have brief conversations. I talk to her lovingly and often refer to her with cute names of affection as one would use to spoil a young child. I admit that it wasn’t very original when I began referring to her as Kitty, but the name seemed to fit and she didn’t appear to object.

A few days ago a neighbor and I were sharing small-talk when he commented on how Kitty had a good friend. When I responded by saying something about how she was a good cat, the neighbor politely pointed out that Kitty was a male cat. Admittedly, I don’t know much about cats, but I just assumed that no testicles meant female. The neighbor then pointed to the small triangular-shaped tip missing from Kitty’s ear, informing me that it is part of the procedure done by the Humane Society after a cat has been neutered. I guess after being neutered, a tip of an ear doesn’t seem like much.

Shortly after learning that Kitty is actually a boy, I noticed that I was speaking differently to him. I’m still feeding him like before, but the sweet names of affection have been replaced with more masculine names and my tone of voice is different as if it were two guys hanging-out together. Kitty doesn’t seem to mind either way, but my change in attitude and tone towards him surprised me. I wonder what this means and what it says about who I am. And I wonder if this same tone and attitude change transfers over to my relationships with those of the human species.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 8th, 2002 at 6:53 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.