So. We got a cat. So far I am thoroughly underwhelmed

[Toonces]

OMG that friggin' classic!

[BanzaiCat]

Cats summed up in two memes:

[bbmike]

I've had the opposite experience with cats. Ours act like dogs and are very loving. I was walking home a couple of nights age and a random cat came running up to me meowing, just wanting to be pet. It had a collar on and as I walked away it went back towards it's house.

[BanzaiCat]

Our neighbor across the street has a cat. When the weather is decent it's out roaming around. It's a very friendly one and often I'll find it just having a snooze in my driveway. And it totally loves petting and will meow at me when it sees me to be sure I don't not see it.

[trailrunner]

I never had a cat growing up.  When my kids were young, we got a dog and a cat.  The dog was lovable and a great companion and we considered him to be part of the family.  The cat?  She was irascible, and the only time I saw her was when she was eating the food (that I had paid for).  The only good thing about the cat was that she was low maintenance.

[Huw the Poo]

Ha!  Banzai that first one absolutely nails it!  ;D

I've had the opposite experience with cats. Ours act like dogs and are very loving. I was walking home a couple of nights age and a random cat came running up to me meowing, just wanting to be pet. It had a collar on and as I walked away it went back towards it's house.

A few months ago we temporarily "acquired" some cat that wandered in.  It couldn't be more different to ours: it was friendly, came to us without hesitation, sat on our laps etc.  I could almost be friends with a cat like that one.

But no.  Eventually it buggered off and we were left with our disgusting creature who apparently hates all life.

[W8taminute]

I currently have two cats.  I never was a dog person and never will be.  Too high maintenance.  Just look at how easy it is to be a cat owner:

[JasonPratt]

One of our previous cats (they mostly don't last long around here, due to coyotes, hawks, owls, trucks, etc.), I theorized wasn't only schizophrenic (...it's important to realize that all cats are schizophrenic -- they're asleep 16 hours a day, sometimes even when they look awake, so their dreams bleed over into reality).

No, this cat clearly had a second brain in her butt.

Usually this hindbrain helps coordinate them, although on some cats when they're running in fifth gear (the loping bound before they shift to warping across reality) the hind legs don't run in the same direction as their front legs. Five to ten degrees off beam.

That was this cat, but the voices in her butt told her to do things, too.

{walking by a potted plant}
{suddenly attacks the potted plant}
"Dear, why are you attacking that plant? It didn't do anything to you!"
"The voices in my butt told me to kill it!"
"But, that's a fake plant. It isn't even alive. You can't--"
"AN UNDEAD PLANT! -- CLEARLY IT MUST DIE!"
"...I think you're just being murderous because you think it's adorable." 

[Huw the Poo]

That reminds me, there's one odd thing this cat does.  We have a balustrade upstairs, and she sometimes lies next to it.  Now, if you stroke her while she's there - fine.  But if you walk halfway down the stairs so that you're on the other side of the balustrade, and try to stroke her through the bars, she claws at you.  Every time.  I can't work out whether she means it or whether it's supposed to be some kind of game.  If you do this, then walk back upstairs and stroke her - again, fine.  So weird.

[trailrunner]

That reminds me, there's one odd thing this cat does.  We have a balustrade upstairs, and she sometimes lies next to it.  Now, if you stroke her while she's there - fine.  But if you walk halfway down the stairs so that you're on the other side of the balustrade, and try to stroke her through the bars, she claws at you.  Every time.  I can't work out whether she means it or whether it's supposed to be some kind of game.  If you do this, then walk back upstairs and stroke her - again, fine.  So weird.

My cat had some weird habits like that.  She would only let me pet her in two places.  One was when I was in the basement working on my bikes.  The other was outside back in the old days when we had a newspaper delivered.  She would be waiting for me in the morning outside to get the paper, and when I'd walk out on our walk, she would lay down and let me pet her.  However, if I made the slightest noise, like scuffing my shoes, she'd tear off in a frightened frenzy.

[Huw the Poo]

Yeah ours is absolutely terrified constantly.  We got her from Blue Cross - a service for rehoming abused/abandoned animals - and they mentioned she'd had a couple of pretty unpleasant homes before they got her.  So I guess that's a big part of it, but any sudden noises or movements really startle her.  It took a long time for her to even start trusting the kids, simply because they're so energetic and she hates that.

[JasonPratt]

Cats are also freaaaaaakkkkkishly pattern-oriented. (That's a generalization, ofc; but anyone with long experience with cats will recognize what I'm talking about.) Once something happens a particular way, they can lock onto that as being THE WAY and if something else happens they can't or won't accept it.

This combination of being both ultra-conservative and radically liberal (in American political terms), often results in hilarity. And annoyance. And general wtfery.

[JasonPratt]

For example, while Banzai's first meme is certainly a valid interpretation -- cats do often do things just to be different or to mess with you, or to get attention -- I would bet a Coke there's a 50/50 chance, maybe better, that that cat found a sunbeam there once, and so now at that time of day the cat is going to breadbox up there because a sunbeam once happened there. Or something equivalent and maybe even more random: another cat hopped in the higher catbag first and rather than have a clawfist about it, the orange/white cat breadboxed up nearby. And now at that time of day THAT IS HOW THE NAPPY WITH EYES OPEN MUST BE!

[bob48]

Our cat really does not like it when you change things around. We recently rearranged the furniture in our bedroom and she was most disgruntled, stalking around and giving us some very dirty looks.

[bayonetbrant]