Sorry to brag, sorry to lord it over you like this, but I've got a cat flap. Yeah. A little feline-sized door-within-a-door for a cat to walk through. A cat flap! Beat that. I didn't even have to install it. It came with the flat, courtesy of the previous owners. As a child I never dared to dream that one day I'd own my own cat flap, and even now that I do, I sometimes have to pinch myself and remember that yes: this is real. This is my cat flap. And it lives in my door.
I don't have a cat though.
I don't have any pets. Yet people keep telling me to get one, just like they keep telling me to get a wife. (Incidentally, before Alison Donnell from the department of English and American literature at the University of Reading writes another impenetrable article for Comment is Free in which she humourlessly over-analyses one of my throwaway sentences, I should perhaps point out that I'm not equating wives with pets. For one thing, you can't bury a wife in a shoebox. In several shoeboxes, sliced thinly, maybe - but not one. I should also clarify that when I mention "burying a wife in a shoebox" I'm not making light of murder or anything like that; I'm talking about a hypothetical wife who died of natural causes - and that furthermore, said hypothetical wife was a postoperative transsexual who'd been born a man, and that her dying wish was to be sliced thinly and lovingly placed in a series of shoeboxes. Finally, I'd like to point out that in her will, she bequeathed everything she owned to an institute of gender studies run by a team of hermaphrodites. It's actually a bloody inspiring story, OK?)
Anyway, back to pets, and people telling me to get one. Assuming the stone's being thrown by a powerful robot, I live a stone's throw from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, a building full of lonely looking furry creatures with gigantic pleading eyes. I could go in there and walk out with armfuls of puppies and kittens. But I won't. Or rather can't. I just can't. Why?
Because animals die, that's why. And they die too soon. They've got short life spans. I had a cat once. And I loved that cat. But eventually the cat died, and I don't know if I want to go through that again. Literally every time I stroke someone else's cat or dog, all I can think is, "Yes, it's lovely, but it'll die". Every time I envisage myself owning a pet, my mind immediately floods with pre-emptive grief. What if it got run over? Or it choked on something? What if I tripped and fell and dropped a Yellow Pages on its head? I just couldn't bear it.
Yes, I know humans die too, and usually leave even sharper grief in their wake when they do so. But you can't go through life without becoming at least vaguely attached to at least one or two humans in some form or another. The pain they'll cause is unavoidable. Whereas pets seem easier to cut out.
I know, pet lovers, I know. The joy your pets give while alive far outweighs the grief of their passing. You might even argue that foreknowledge of your pet's future death actually lends your delight in their comparatively fleeting existence even more resonance. That's all very well. I still don't want to come home one night to find a dead cat on the floor.
When I asked the internet whether I should get a pet, I got a variety of responses. One person suggested buying something dangerous, like a scorpion or a tiger. That way, rather than worrying about its death, I'd be worrying about my own. Our day-to-day existence would turn into a nail-biting contest in which only one of us would make it out alive. But I live in London. My stress levels peaked some time ago, thanks.
Someone else suggested a virtual pet, like a Tamagotchi. I had one of those years ago: accidentally put it through the washing machine in a jeans pocket and felt like a murderer. Taxidermy also got a mention. True, a stuffed pet wouldn't die. But it would stand around in a glass box, advertising death. And that's what I see when I look in the mirror. I see death. The ageing process and death. And a mop. The mop's often propped up against that wall at the back I can see from the mirror. It's not relevant to the discussion. I just threw it in to lighten the mood.
I suppose what I'm getting at here is I'm just too damn angsty to own a pet. Which is a pity because, like I say, I've got a cat flap. And whenever people see it they go, "Ooh, have you got a cat?" and I have to explain that I don't, because of death and everything, and it's a bit of a conversation-killer to be honest. And it's happened so many times now that every time I see the cat flap, I think about the cat I don't have, and how much I'd like one if only it wouldn't die, and then I realise I'm mourning a theoretical cat, which in turn leads me to contemplate how little time I have in my own life, and how I shouldn't really waste it in morbid mental cul-de-sacs, and that makes me sad. The cat flap makes me sad.
Which is why I'm going to stop typing now and brick the bastard up. Who's laughing now, cat flap? WHO'S LAUGHING NOW?
• This week Charlie decided throwing eggs at Nick Griffin is counterproductive. To really confound him, the protesters should arrive in an open-top bus filled with 200 incredibly pretty FHM "high-street honey" type glamour girls who simply point at him and laugh derisively at the end of every sentence. Can someone please make this happen?
