Dr. Martin Rundkvist is a Swedish archaeologist, journal editor, public speaker, skeptic, atheist, lefty liberal, bookworm, and father of two.
My first wife had a cat named Cassandra, and she had a litter of three kittens. One was grey, black and white, and we called him Batman. Two were ginger, and I don't remember what we called them, but the neighbour who took one of them in called him Sophus. He grew up to become a fine tomcat and a great hunter.
Sophus and his owner lived on the ground floor with a little garden on the edge of a park. So the cat would come home with prey and lay it at his owner's feet. There were birds, including the fast ones, and small rodents. Sophus was good. But hunting wasn't always good. After his second-worst day in that park, Sophus came home with an earthworm.
On his blackest day ever, Sophus the cat came home with a potato.
Comments
Classic! My cat was frightened (like me) of spiders.
But Martin, since I'm a professional writer and especially because your English is better than mine, I feel duty bound to point out that in your first sentence "she" refers to "my first wife".
Posted by: Charles Butcher | February 2, 2009 9:28 AM
Maybe our expectations of cats are higher than they should be.
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Posted by: George | February 2, 2009 9:49 AM
Growing up, I had twin cats who would go to the field behind our house to hunt. One of them often brought home mice, but the other one brought home leaves, and he would be so proud because he thought he had actually caught something. His proudest moment was when he brought home a small branch with 5 or 6 leaves on it.
Posted by: catgirl | February 2, 2009 10:02 AM
Hunting? Modern kittens are too lazy to even walk...
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/01/30/kittens-chillax-on-a.html
Posted by: Lassi Hippeläinen | February 2, 2009 10:13 AM
Charles, in this case "she" by grammatical necessity refers to Britney Spears.
Posted by: Martin R | February 2, 2009 12:17 PM
My cat Konjak - elder statesman, destroyer of worlds - once caught a viper (the reptile, not the car, though I wouldn't put it past him).
Posted by: Pär | February 2, 2009 12:36 PM
I once had a 7.5 lb (3.4 kg) Siamese cat who brought home an 8 lb (3.63 kg) rabbit.
Posted by: chezjake | February 2, 2009 4:16 PM
I think catgirls cat was secretly vegan and just pretending to be mentally retarded so the other cats wouldn't tease him. Yeah, I think cats would be more tolerant of retardation than veganism.
Posted by: Felicia Gilljam | February 2, 2009 7:18 PM
Posted by: llewelly | February 3, 2009 12:33 AM
My girlfriends' big cat only hunts aphids, possibly because he doesn't have to run after them, but now he has revealed an appetite for canned vegetable soup. I also suspect he's really vegan, and feels misunderstood.
Martin: first Bajs-Arne, and now Sop-hus, what's with the denigrating cat names?
Posted by: kai | February 3, 2009 3:35 AM
House of Waste has a certain pharaonic ring to it IMHO.
Posted by: Martin R | February 3, 2009 1:07 PM
This English teacher totally missed the reference to the wife having kittens, assuming it was the cat doing that. Maybe my mind was elswhere, grieving over the untimely demise of yet another demented computer yesterday afternoon. I have no cats but my little terrier caught a baby rabbit once. I popped him on the rear to make him let it go. He did and it scurried away under the fence. He sulked about it for two hours. Would a cat sulk if you made it let go of its prize mouse/leaf/rabbit/viper?
Posted by: DianaGainer | February 3, 2009 1:15 PM
One of the ginger kittens was called Gollum. It was the first one that was born - it was so ugly...
Posted by: Amber | February 5, 2009 1:35 PM
Martin,
The other day my cat brought home a Holly Ghost dove which was hanging from a neighbour's door. He was so desapointed the stuffed bird wasn't fighting back.
Your soon-to-be science blogger friend
eduardo
Posted by: Eduardo Bessa | February 7, 2009 4:29 PM
Have you ever seen a potato fight? They're vicious little buggers! Or so I'm told… I only ever see them after in the bins at the local organics shop, after they've been subdued and killed.
Posted by: blf | February 8, 2009 4:18 AM