'You Are Not Worthy Of Instruction in the Immobile Arts!'

Meet Tigger and Bongo. These are my cats.

You wouldn’t know it just from looking that they are hard at work. Really, they are. They are masters of their craft. This is what you would call a ‘textbook’ example of what it is they do. These two felines are putting on a clinic. If these cats could talk smack, they would be saying “We hope you brought a backpack, ‘cause we’re takin’ you to school!”

What is it they are doing? you may ask. (Go ahead, ask. ASK, I COMMAND YOU.) Take another look at the picture. A close look. Closer. CLOSER. (Ooh, dammit, back off you don’t want to get those little grease spots on the monitor). Did you smell, er, see it?

Tigger and Bongo are my sensei. My house is our dojo. A world-class dojo in the kung fu known as “Immobile Feline Style”. This is evidence of their genius. These guys are like black belts. No, super black belts. No, double plus good super black belts. And I am but a lowly grasshopper, flitting about in the grass at their furry, litter-clumped paws.

I read somewhere that the average cat sleeps twenty hours out of every twenty-four. Ha. Pikers. Tigger and Bongo would sneer at such feeble attempts at mastering the art of catnapping. These cats have managed to push it to oh, I don’t know, twenty-two or twenty-three hours a day? Sure seems like it. They do take the occasional break to eat and excrete. Not in the same place; even with brains the size of walnuts they get the concept of ‘don’t shit where you eat’. Instead they do it the litter box. Mostly. Bongo in particular has an annoying habit of missing the box, sometimes by a long way. Like on the stairs up to the top floor of our house. Tigger gets confused sometimes, thinks his poop is chasing him, at which point he freaks out. He then rubs his booty on the floor while scooching himself along with his front paws, like an Elvis-style hip thrust/small child-has-to-go-BAD combo. Funny and gross at the same time.

But enough about fecal hijinks. As I said, Tigger and Bongo are sensei, like Pat Morita in The Karate Kid, or maybe Yoda. Brains so small, wisdom so expansive, how could I possibly learn? They have sought to teach me for years, yet I am no further up the mountain. I have proficiency in “Log Pose”, sure, but what about “Dead Shrimp on Rock” or “Hovering Buddha” or the intricate “Yin-Yang Double Nose in the Butt” pose? Please, I must know your kung fu!

Forgive me, masters. I am the shrimp caught in a battle between whales. I am the chrysanthemum petal, you are the monsoon. My weakness shall become strength.

Tomorrow, I shall not move. Hhaaaiiiii! (zzzzzz…)

(The title I got from a bit of SpongeBob Squarepants dialogue. Genius, pure genius…)