There is a buzz in the streets. It’s buzzing through all the most fashionable cafes and bars. It buzzes repeatedly through all the busy train stations. It’s made its mark on the Wall Street Journal and the notorious Newsletter of the Sardine Tin Collectors’ Society. What is this buzz you ask? It is the fantastically exciting new question that everyone wishes to have answered:
What is the opposite of a cat?
The first and most obvious answer that many would give is “a dog”. However, when you analyse the attributes of dogs and cats, you find that they have far too many things in common to be truly opposite. Indeed they are both land mammals, they perambulate from A to B on four legs, they are coated in sometimes-lustrous fur, and they both have a tail (except for Vladimir who had a damned fine half-tail). So we must drag ourselves back to the drawing board in our search for the opposite of a cat. This seems a monstrously huge task. Indeed, if one were to approach it by listing all things that could ever exist, then work through crossing out everything that could not possibly be the opposite of a cat until one is left with just one item – the clear feline-opposite by process of elimination, then such a task would surely take a long, long time – in excess of a week, for sure. Thus we must find a different route to the answer, a more direct route, a far less meandering of walks.
It is with this in mind that we ask ourselves which properties the opposite of a cat may possess? Evidently, the Catticus Oppositticus (as it will become known to biologists and other likeminded persons) will be something that is neither animal nor vegetable, and therefore mineral (and therefore not of interest to such persons as the biologists that spent many a heated lunchtime conversation coming up with the name ‘Catticus Oppositticus’). This leads us immediately to ponder the question: “Is the opposite of a cat a handful of copper sulphate crystals?” Our first instincts would be to jump and cry out “Ee by gum! We’ve cracked it!”, until we realise that copper sulphate crystals have the well-known property of being blue and pretty, while cats have the well-known property of usually being pretty (especially the ones that wish they were blue). Thus we must strike a dash through the copper sulphate crystal hypothesis, and step back towards the drawing board. Meanwhile, as we stare transfixed in deep thought at the above-mentioned drawing board, the biologists are now spending their lunchtimes in the process of naming a new semi-microscopic creature that was recently found between the fifth and sixth (webbed) toes of Miley Cyrus whilst she was on a singles cruise in the triangular waters of Bermuda.
Perhaps the opposite of a cat is some kind of car? Unfortunately no, wrong again! Cars can move fast, as can cats (with the obvious exception of the fat buggers and the poor stupid cat that became famous after it caught and ate a creature it saw scuttling away from the toes of Miley Cyrus as she stepped ashore from her recent cruise holiday). On the bright side, a car is getting very close to being the opposite of a cat. Indeed, if we could prevent the high velocity capabilities of your traditional car, then we would surely have stumbled upon the opposite of a cat. Thus the question we must ask is what property must something possess if it is to be forced to slow its velocity significantly? And like a smack to the head from a cricket bat, the answer comes to us: one must have a pair of pendulous and cumbersome bollocks to protect from that cricket bat that reared its ugly head just a minute ago if one’s velocity is to be slowed significantly. Indeed, if one puts one’s ear to the road and listens to the vibrations of distant conversations emanating from full cars on fun-packed journeys, one often hears exclamations of the type “Slow down! These bollocks I’m carrying may well not last the journey at such tremendous speeds! They’ve already knocked Grandma sideways in her seat and I dearsay Little Timmy’ll end the day with a broken nose and a hairline fracture to the collarbone if they keep bouncing at this angle!” And Eureka! The answer is upon us. The opposite of a cat is an old-fashioned three wheeler car with a pair of bollocks at the back, suspended from the back bumper, just short of scraping the ground, the manner of which requires the driver to pay great care and attention when going over bumps.
