Why is my cat looking at me?

Unsigned

Dear Unsigning Feline Aficionado,

This is a fact unknown to you, but after questions regarding my personal qualities, questions regarding cats are the most popular type of query to cross my desk.

Oh the "How big are you?" and "What do you eat?" and "Y r u so dum?" camps are large and boisterous to be sure, but the "Why does my cat eat his own vomit?" and the "Does my cat truly love me or am I just a delivery mechanism for food to him?" communities are active, querulous, and precipitously factionalized.

Your question, though, is sufficiently unique to warrant a full answer, rather than a hastily scrawled suggestion to read a manual that may or may not be "the fucking."

REASONS YOUR CAT MAY BE LOOKING AT YOU:

1. Is there a mouse or large insect crawling about your person? Felines have been known to "pounce" upon smaller animals and devour them, in the manner of Google or Microsoft.

2. Have you noticed anyone else in the room training a laser dot upon you? Cats are nature's snipers; they attack whatever a laser shines upon. The entire modern idea of the sniper (or snipatrix, for the ladies) with their red laser dots and high-powered rifles are merely an attempt by man to replicate what comes so naturally to the catty.

3. Are you dressed in the manner of a sexy lady cat, and is the cat staring at you actually a skunk? Documentaries on the television monitor have taught us all that Québécois skunks often stare at and then pursue cats in order to make of the sweet love-making at or near them.

4. Cats watch humans to determine if they have feelings, can feel pain, and are conscious of the world in the manner of cats. They wonder if humans have souls as they do, and it bears mentioning that there has been a substantial schism within the Cat Church over this very issue. One branch of the church believes that humans are essentially no different than rocks, sunbeams, screen doors, and chair legs—in that none of them have souls. The other branch believes that humans have souls in the same manner as mice, crickets, and toothless fish, and that surely their souls must be likewise delicious. I believe this latter group are akin to Anabaptists in this regard.

5. The cat is planning ways to kill you. Tripping is a popular speculation, based upon cats I interviewed for this column (including one tomcat named Missus Kittypants, who is quite cross at his name). Cats likewise favor suffocation while humans sleep and eldritch curses. Also toxoplasmosis.

6. Check your person for small secreted amounts of cat-friendly substances. Is there tuna on your pocket? Do you have mice in your shorts? Upon your person is there any amount at all of catnip, catnap, catnyppe^TM (an English brand), or catnope^TM (a diet catnip variant)?

7. The cat is likely not watching your person but is instead watching a ghost that is standing behind you. RUN!

8. Some cats are gifted with a feline "Fifth Sense" that allows them to see several seconds into the future, so the correct question, dear reader, would be "Why is my cat looking at me in the future?" Truly a chilling prospect.

9. After the work of Erwin Schrödinger, cats have been rendered able to see unto the many multiple worlds that exist around, betwixt, atop, and behind us (Look Out!). Your cat, if it is the correct breed, is likely wondering if you are alive or dead, and which you will be when it opens the box.

10. My lab assistant, Rob, suggests that, perhaps, you have been "toking the skunk" over-often, and have thus acquired the Paranoia. As Rob has proven much learnéd in the field of amateur ethno-pharmacology, his credentials tend to lend credence to his diagnoses, at least in the manners of cats and the chronic.

Cats are wary and clever creatures in some moments, and possessed of only the most rudimentary meowing skills at others. Please consult the above list versus your own knowledge of your cat's peccadilloes to determine the most likely cause of its seemingly unwarranted fascination.

Until Your Cat Ceases Staring at You and Beyond Even Then I Remain,
The Giant Squid
Editor-in-Chief
PMjA