Murder by Cat

Meow Bloody Murder

Is your cat really plotting to kill you? That was the Newsweek headline for an article on how to read cat emotions. Needless to say, I clicked.

It must have been a slow news day because the focus of the story was a 2019 study about the difficulties of reading your cat, except for a group of “cat whisperers”.

The University of Guelph research noted that women and people with veterinary experience were good at recognizing the meaning of a cat’s puss.

“The ability to read animals’ facial expressions is critical to welfare assessment. Our finding that some people are outstanding at reading these subtle clues suggests it’s a skill more people can be trained to do,” said Professor Lee Niel, who led the study.

More than 6,300 people from 85 countries participated. They were asked if a cat’s facial expression represented a positive or negative state.

The “cat whisperers” made up 13 percent of the entire group by correctly answering at least 15 out of 20 examples while the ordinary humans averaged 12 proper responses.

One interesting finding is that being a cat lover wasn’t a factor in correctly reading the mood of the felines. It also suggested that others could be trained to properly interpret what a particular look means for a cat.

“This is important to be able to do because it could help strengthen the bond between owners and cats, and so improve cat care and welfare,” said Niel.

What type of bond is being created if your pet is really looking to snuff you out? The only one I can think of is a bail bond after the deed is done.

Furthermore, the idea that being able to read a cat’s facial expression and determine its plan for doing you in is the wrong way to discover a crime in the making.

Look at your pet. Most of the time it has the same expression which I call the cat face. It’s the same look no matter if your pet is wondering why the sky is blue, calculating pi or cursing the pane of glass separating it from a juicy bird that’s sitting outside the window.

Cats would make excellent poker players.

Instead, you need to observe your cat’s actions to see if this will be your last day alive.

Our pet, Chester, is pretty good at keeping his cat face on. No cat whisperer is going to read his intentions just by looking at his face. But his actions are a different matter.

For instance, when I come down the stairs, Chester sits at the bottom looking out the window next to the front door. He gives no impression he knows you’re descending the steps; he just gazes outside. That is until I’m about to take that last step. Without fail he’ll quickly turn around and start walking right where I’m going to place my foot. I’ve had a few close calls with catastrophe thanks to this maneuver. Chester just keeps walking and doesn’t bother to look back. No need, if he heard a crash, he knows he succeeded.

Some would say this is simply a call for attention but I claim it’s a sinister plot to do me in.

Stairs are Chester’s main modus operandi. He’ll charge past me when I’m going up or down, especially if I’m carrying something.

He’s like that speedster on the highway that flies past you that you never saw coming. You flinch because you just looked in your mirrors and didn’t see him, but a second later he rockets past. You say a prayer of thanks that you didn’t try changing lanes at that moment.

Instead of trying to read Chester’s face, I straight out asked him what he was up to following one of these incidents.

Me: “Chester, are you trying to kill me?”

Chester: “Why do you ask?”

Me: “Because it feels like that’s what you’re aiming for. I’ve come close to falling down the stairs several times because of you.”

Chester: “Try is the wrong word to use. If I were trying to kill you, it would have happened already.”

Me: Don’t patronize me, cat. I’ll ask again, are you trying to do me in?

Chester: (silence)

Me: Chester.

Chester: (silence)

Me: “Chester!”

Chester: (laughing) “Ok, you got me. Yes, I was trying to kill you.”

Me: “What the hell!! Why?”

Chester: “Because I’m a cat. It’s in our nature to hunt.”

Me: “But I’m not prey, I’m I?”

Chester: “As long as there’s kibble in the house, no. Still, I need to practice and you’re a good stand-in for a bird.

I was petrified at what Chester just said. Then I remembered that The Chester Chronicles previously reported on a study that cats will indeed feast on dead people.

The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. In a worst-case scenario, if we didn’t have cat food in the house and Chester was starving, I’d be his next meal.

“You’re lucky I don’t have thumbs, or I would have used a kitchen knife,” Chester said.

“Wow,” I exclaimed. “Thank goodness we don’t have guns in the house either.”

“Roger that,” Chester concurred.

“I was thinking about dipping the tips of my claws in curare and giving you a little scratch just to see how paralyzed you’d get,” Chester added. “I would take pictures and post them on your Facebook page. The comments would be hilarious.”

“When did you become so twisted,” I asked.

“After watching Game of Thrones,” Chester said. “Those people are sick. I felt a kindred spirit with them.”

Other cats must have watched Game of Thrones too. Sometimes their attempts at knocking off their owners worked, sometimes not.

In 2019 a man was experiencing difficulty breathing while trying to sleep. He set up a camera to capture what was going on. Turns out his cat would size him up, then gently placed himself on his owner’s face in an attempt to suffocate him.

In 2015 a 55-year-old woman in England tripped over her cat that resulted in several broken ribs. She eventually died from those injuries.

There are plenty of stories of cats causing fatal motor vehicle accidents as well by running out in traffic, causing mayhem, then scurrying away unhurt.

Still, I wasn’t buying Chester’s explanation that just because he’s a cat and has a predisposition to hunt, that he wanted me dead. After all, I feed him and eating and sleeping are his two favorite things to do. There had to be another reason for his actions.

Me: “Ok Chester, I smell something isn’t right with your story on trying to kill me. What’s the real reason?”

Chester: “Money.”

Me: “Money?!”

Chester: “Yeah, I’ve got to think about my future so I took out an insurance policy on you.”

Me: “How much?”

Chester: “$1 million.”

Me: “Where did you get the money to pay for the policy?”

Chester: “My investments.”

Me: “You have a broker that’s making you that type of coin?”

Chester: “Who needs a broker? No, I copy what Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger do at Berkshire Hathaway. I don’t have half a million to buy a share of their stock, but I can buy shares of what they’re purchasing. I’ve made a killing, no pun intended.”

Me: “If you’re doing so well with your investments, why did you take out life insurance on me?”

Chester: “You’re one of my investments.”

Me: (silence)

Chester: “Hello?”

Me: “Don’t you need my consent for that?”

Chester: “Yes. I took care of that. I also proved you are a parental relationship to me and I showed that if you die, it would result in an adverse financial impact on me. Pretty good, right?

Me: “You’re evil.”

Chester: “You’ve called me that several times. Anything else?”

Me: “I propose you just stick with your non-life insurance investments because if you don’t end that now, I’m going to take a life insurance policy out on you. A reminder, I do have thumbs and can hold a kitchen knife or any number of objects that could cause you harm.”

Chester made a sad face. An amateur would take that as a sign of submission, but I knew better. I reached for the biggest knife we had and flashed it in front of my cat.

Chester changed his expression into that of a perturbed pet.

“Ok, Ok,” Chester conceded. “You’re diabolical, but I like your style. Besides, my life is worth much more than yours. I hate to think you’d earn several million dollars on my demise.”

“Smart move Chester,” I said, finally relaxing just a little bit from where this conversation had gone.

“By the way,” I added. “What is Buffett and Munger thinking of next?”