I once had a kitten named Frisco—named after John Stamos’s character in the soap opera General Hospital. The brightest, friendliest cat I ever knew, Frisco was black and white and cute as can be. Cat leukemia claimed him before his first birthday, so I never really had a chance to deal with hairballs and incontinence from him. Like Holden Caulfield’s younger brother, Frisco remains youthful, precocious, and all-around perfect in my mind.

Enter Cat, a black cat who will remain nameless here, not to protect her identity but because that’s what we call her. Original, hm? We got her at the pound, after she fooled us into thinking she was halfway smart—which I guess doesn’t say a whole lot about us—but in the end it turned out she’s as dumb as a doornail.

Oh… she can fake being smart, but we no longer fall for it. She’ll sit at the foot of the bed while ignoring us and avidly watch the news. And I do mean avidly—her eyes are riveted to the screen, and if we call for her, she’ll move her head slightly toward us and back (as though in a distracted manner) without moving her eyes from the set even an inch. But ask her what breaking news story she was just listening to, and she couldn’t tell you. She’ll make up some excuse about how distracted you made her, but it’s really because the whole news-watching thing is just an act.

Truly, she is not that bright. She spends a lot of time circling the litter box, finding the perfect spot and position, then aim her butt promptly outside the box… every… single… time. Honestly, we tried getting bigger boxes, but it never works. Her current box is now nearly as big as our bathtub, and still it never fails; the poop is always outside of it.

Also, we keep the small bag of cat food by her bowl, oftentimes left open. Yet when she empties her bowl, she’ll look up at you and beg for more. Even if you don’t comply and simply walk away, she’ll just sit there looking pathetic—a 1-800-number on her chest, eyes watery and pleading, a slight tremble on her lower lip. The whole day, it’s like that. She’ll follow you around, trying to get you to follow her back to the food dish. It never, ever occurs to her that she can push the bag down and have at the crunchies if she wanted to—as much as she wanted, even.

Either that, or she is just too lazy, high-and-mighty, my-human-servants-will-do-it-snobby to lower herself to such a trick. Would that I could believe that; I think she’s just stupid.

And I will firmly say so… right before extolling the virtues of Frisco, who is now long gone and dead.

“Yes, yes, I know,” I’ll be told. “He used to read the Wall Street Journal.”

“No, no,” I’d say. “You’re exaggerating. I never said that. But he did look both ways before crossing the street; he was just so smart!”

In the meantime, Cat would be staring at the wall, engrossed with whatever it is she sees there. A paperback might fall from the bed to the floor, and she’d jump up a mile in startlement, before settling into a foot-licking session as though nothing ever happened.

The next day, I’d find cat poop on my office floor for all the fine things I said about her the night before, and she’d be there, looking at me with sad eyes as though to say, “Sally Struthers ate all my food. Will you feed me?”

Stupid cat. As if I would fall for it.

And I tell her exactly that as I put more crunchies into her bowl.

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