When I was a kid, we had a cat. Actually, we had a bunch of cats. You see, when you live on a ranch, cats can pretty much come and go as they please. So you get a big litter in the spring, and only some of the cats make it to the next spring. Some get eaten by coyotes, other get sold, and sent to live in posh kitty condos in the big city, and others, the sad others, meet their end in the mean teeth of the fan blade when they've stopped for a rest on a nice warm engine block.
We only had one or two house cats at any one time. One in particular; this old guy lasted longer than any of the others. He had been there at least as long as I had. He made a good dinner companion for my sister and I. You see, we were poor then, not that I really understood it. I mean we didn't have a TV until I was eight or so, so I didn't get what all the fuss was about when the kids were talking about the cool show they saw last night. But that's not the reason we ate with the cat. We weren't that poor.
We used to feed the cat in the laundry room. This, being the laundry room, was where the washer and dryer were. We at one time considered what it would be like to go for a ride in the dryer, but we never worked up the courage. But from that room, we could look out the window and see what the temperature was, in both Fahrenheit and in the cool new Celsius scale (this was Canada, and Fahrenheit wasn't good enough anymore). But that has nothing to do with why we dined with the kitty.
Well, at least we didn't eat the cat himself; that would have been rather messy. But my Mom did once break a wooden spoon on my bottom when I had been a naughty, naughty boy. I laughed my ass off, no pun intended. It was the funniest thing that had happened up to that point. I forget what I did to deserve such a spanking. I remember Mom actually jumped over a fence chasing me for being bad, just like Calvin's Mom did in that one Calvin and Hobbes strip. Yeah, that one. I don't remember what I did that time either, but statistics says that I was probably harrassing my poor sister. Just so you know, my sister and I get along great now. That's not why I stopped eating cat food.
So we fed the cat in the laundry room. My Mom asked my sister and I to go feed the cat one day, so we grabbed the cat and hauled him in there, and sat him down and got him his dinner. And then, on a whim, we had some too. We figured, well, if it's good enough for the cat, it's got to be good enough for us. And let me tell you, cat food is pretty damn good when you're six years old. Yum yum. So my sister and I lived the high life and ate cat food once in a while. But I've stopped eating cat food.
Actually, I don't think I've had cat food since I was six. I guess it didn't really taste that good. But I don't have to eat cat food anymore, because my girlfriend is such a good cook. She told me to say that.