I used to have this cat. It was 18 or so, and it couldn't retract its claws. It also fell over every time it sneezed, which was often. Now, it never did anything nasty to me, aside maybe from remove my desire for longevity. It kept to itself and lived its bizarrely soundtracked life (clickclickclickSHNISHthud) until eventually the wonders of modern technology allowed us to assassinate it out of its misery.

But there are some ancient cats that really piss me off. One evening last year, as all was going smoothly in our quest for free education, a group of about 30 of us were sitting in the boardroom in our Registry at university. Down below, the doors were barricaded and guarded by some beefy socialists, and some pizza places had given us free food. The scene was all set for some glorious news-watching as the media of the day caught up with our latest exploits.

First came channel 3. Fairly liberal, we got about 5 minutes and some good soundbites. We cheered and drank coke. Channel 2... no news. Channel 1, however, destroyed my faith in humanity (again). Here we were, campaigning for the right of all people to an education of quality and depth, and... there was this cat, you see. It was old. That was all very well and good, but it was also on the news. We sat, and waited for the cat to go away so we could watch ourselves swarming through second-story windows, but alas! The cat got 15 frickin' minutes of media coverage! Shots from every angle and in slo-mo! All it did was walk around and wheeze, it didn't even dodge security guards or anything! We were thoroughly pissed off, I can tell you.

Ok, one-off inexplicable piece of human behaviour, fine. But, and this is where I begin to suspect conspiracy, the next time we invaded (and this time was cooler. This time they had the building completely locked down, and I had to... but more on that later), there was...
I don't remember that one as clearly. The outrage was dulled by a sense of betrayal and unreality. There was another cat taking our newsspace from us, again on channel 1. On deeper analysis, we discovered that Ch1 is primarily funded by our government, and that particular one was corrupt and evil.

Oh yeah, and one threw up on our bathroom floor. But then it died too.

So, that's why I reacted the way I did when the topic of old cats appeared in the chatterbox.