Baka Cat

Sometimes, animals will behave in the strangest ways. Take the following real-life encounters as proof.

I am out with my parents and sis at the Whampoa market. Don't know where that is? It is in a godforsaken part of Singapore. Before anyone points out that they live there, I will say that there is nothing wrong with living in a secluded part of Singapore; there are times when I would envy the ones who live in blissful isolation. Right, as I was saying, we were at the market for lunch. It is very strange. There are bees at the hawker centre. They buzz around the seats nonchalantly, and cluster around the beancurd desert shop. One wonders why. Apart from being a general nuisance, they are a danger to society (they would have to buzz around my rice, and no one else's).

That was the first of the animal mysteries. Next, a black cat, full grown mind you, and therefore had the mental capability of a mature, thinking animal, came and sat at the periphery of our table. It looked at us with that typically endearing big-eyed look that said, "Aww. Look at the cute kitty. Feed me please!" Being animal lovers, me and my sis began discussing (in an undertone, cos my dad doesn't like us playing with or feeding strays) whether we should feed the cat. It went something like that:

SIS: Should we feed the cat?
ME: (eagerly) OK. (pause) You do it.
SIS: You feed lah.
ME: Why me? Anyway, it might not eat chicken...
SIS: I'm not sure.
(In the meantime, Cat starts cleaning itself next to my table. After dithering about for a few minutes agonising over whether I should feed it, I decided I should.)
ME: Right. What about Dad?
SIS: I'll distract him...Dad! Look over there! [I am serious. My dad really looked 'over there']
(I quickly throw a piece of chicken to the cat)

Guess what. The stupid cat got up from cleaning itself and walked right past the piece of chicken that I had painstakingly deboned for it. Stupid stupid cat. Then, the best part comes. It stalked round our table once and settled down to stare at us eating our chicken rice - with the same appealing look it had before I tried to feed it. The piece of chicken lay folornly on the opposite side of the table, forgotten by the cat.

The third stars of absurdist animal behaviour were put on by none other than my own hamsters. Both of them were playing on the hamster wheel. Only one thing. They were both running in the opposite directions. Yup, so the total action was that there were two hamsters scrambling happily on a stationary wheel. They did this at least 3 times that night too. Ah well. The mysteries of animal behaviour...