Honestly, kids don’t have much going for them other than carrying on the family name. And you might have very good reason to fear even that. Cats, on the other hand… Well, by almost every other measure, they’ve got kids beat by a country mile.
From the cost to raise them to their agreeable nature, disciplined habits, all-around respectful behavior, and athletic ability — from toilet training all the way through the teenage years — it’s not hard to find a slew of reasons why you might find a cat preferable to a kid. Why anybody in their right mind would think otherwise is hard to fathom. In fact, once done reading these 36 reasons, you might well be itchin’ to find the nearest merchandise return counter to exchange your snotty hapless kid for a felicitous furry feline.
- You can raise six cats for the cost of one-quarter of a kid.
- You don’t have to pay for cats to go to college.
- Cats won’t owe student loan debt the rest of their life and yours.
- Cats come in five or six different fur colors.
- Kids scream. Cats purr.
- Cats will still cuddle with you on the sofa after they’ve grown up.
- Kids will move back home to live on the sofa after they’ve grown up.
- Cats know how to pee in the box right away and don’t need to be potty-trained.
- When a cat meows back at you, you know they appreciate you. When a kid talks back, it ain’t the same.
- Cats don’t text and drive at the same time.
- Cats don’t argue that they need tattoos and ear gauges.
- Cats will play with mice for fun. Kids will go out and play with your new $30,000 car for fun.
- You never have to worry your cat will get in trouble at school.
- Cats can’t cut class either.
- Cats stop growing before they’re two feet long. Kids are just getting started at two feet and constantly outgrow their clothes.
- Cats don’t need any clothes at all.
- Cats need flea collars. Kids — expensive braces.
- Cats can be picky eaters, but kids will eat you out of house and home.
- Cats sleep most of the time. Kids talk and text all the time and study none of the time.
- Cats keep clean without having to be told. Kids don’t do anything you want without being told.
- Cats do cute things most of their lives. Kids are cute the first 5 years. Then they become teenagers which lasts 20 years.
- Cats = peace and quiet. Kids = never a quiet moment.
- Grown cats protect their own territory and chase other cats away. Grown kids bring over other kids to eat whatever’s in the fridge and drink all the beer.
- You can have sex on the kitchen table while the cat chows down at their food bowl below. Once you have a kid you’ll never have the opportunity for sex again.
- Cats will catch a bird and drop it at your feet. Kids will flip you the bird instead.
- If your cat gets lost, you put a poster on a telephone pole. If your kid tells you to get lost and runs off in a huff, you hope they don’t crash the car into a telephone pole.
- Teenage kids can sleep all day and carouse all night. Cats in their teens sleep all day and all night.
- Cats hate going anywhere in a car. Kids will do anything in a car: sneak off to get drunk, get their 47th tattoo, hang out the window dragging Main, start a fight, knock over mailboxes, have sex, smoke dope at a concert, then total the car, all before 10:00 p.m. on Friday when you told them to be back home.
- Cats don’t need a job. Kids won’t get a job.
- Cats can be spayed or neutered to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Kids? Nope.
- Cats like to drink from the toilet bowl. Kids like to drink a lot and then barf in the toilet bowl.
- Cats will sit up and beg for their food. You have to beg your kids to get them to do anything.
- Male cats don’t feel the urge to put a baseball cap on sideways and wear knee pants hanging past the crack in their butt plus a T-shirt down to their knees.
- A cat can leap three times its body height up onto a perch or climb halfway up a tree lickety-split. If you ask a kid to pick themselves up off the sofa and do something, they roll over and groan.
- Cats meow for food when they get home, then go take a nap. Kids ask for money when they get home, then go back out to raise more hell.
- It doesn’t take much for a cat to start purring. Or for a kid to start whining.
Cats vs dogs, the choice is equally clear.
No wet dog smells.
They walk themselves.
They wash themselves.
If you clip their claws, it’s far easier and far less likely to cut into the quick.
Males have fully rubbable bellies without the penis getting in the way.
No “bull in the china shop” syndrome… just delicate cat paws moving around your glass figurines.
No rolling in shit or decaying carcasses — they roll in catnip instead!
Rodent control gratis.
No poop all over the yard for humans to pick up.
No fawning.
Did I forget something? :-D
Hey, leavergirl. Aww, c’mon now, I just LIVE for that wet-dog smell. ;-) But what I like even more is after you pet a dog, you get that nice oily, doggy musk all over your hands. Perfect when you’re in need of good positive traction on the steering wheel of the car, or want to leave some tacky grime behind for someone else on something like, say, a doorknob. (Still, better than human baby poop or slobber any day o’ the year. :-) )
I wouldn’t say you forgot anything, but I wonder… if a guy… or a guy and a gal… were to put his or her mind to it, what might they come up with to fill out the list? Hmm, hmm? =:-O
Hey. Here is more.
No barking.
Purring.
Dogs have what, 6 vocalizations? Cats have some 25. They practically talk!
Cats begin as kittens, and kittens are the best people in the world.
:-)
Vera, I tell you what, how about we take this to private email, and put things on slow-cook setting to see what continues to bubble up long-term?
Although I’m much more a cat person like you, I like dogs too, and had the thought, gee, what if we tried playing both sides of the fence here as a writing challenge? Might be fun to see what could happen working on both cats-vs.-dogs one-liners as well as vice versa. Heck, dogs vs. kids too, for that matter, hehheh.
My biggest problem with dogs is the incessant, hours-long or day-after-day neurotic barking that some curse the rest of us with. It only takes a single dog to spoil the peace and quiet of half an entire neighborhood. Which is often an “owner” problem as much or more than a barking problem, of course.
At least cats limit their disruptions to perhaps pooping or peeing in someone’s flowerbed once in a while, or once-in-a-blue-moon caterwauling when some interloping cat makes an appearance. ;-)