My cats are too easy.  I've been thinking about all the
anecdotes I read here and why I have so few to contribute, and
that's the conclusion I've come to.

Sure, Will has asthma and Heidi has long hair and a healthy
tendency to shed.  But those are rather faded and pedestrian
methods of making trouble for humans, don't you think?  And even
in those behaviors, they miss obvious opportunities.  In the two
years that I've had them, long-haired Heidi has never coughed up
a hair-ball!  And Will, who needs frequent medication, rather
than making me pay dearly for the privilege of dosing him, takes
pills and inhaled meds with only token resistance and less
grumbling than most humans.

Neither of them is excessively clingy, but both love petting and
are easy to handle.  Heidi only attacks my papers on the
desk-top when she is really desperate to get me out of bed in
the morning; and Will ceased splintering the door jambs as soon
as I indicated my disapproval and gave him the Alpine Scratcher
instead.  There's a little wear and tear on the furniture, but
never any deliberate destruction.

My previous two owners were no great shakes in the aggravation
department, lord knows, but at least they knew enough to barf
frequently and always on a bed or carpet.  These two, in the
rare instance that they do barf something up, have almost always
done it on a hardwood or concrete floor.  They just don't seem
to get it.  They have neither the destructive creativity
(oxymoron) nor the evil-mindedness displayed by most cats.  It's
as though their arsenal of Bastard Cat Tricks and Aggravating
Behaviors was never properly furnished.

Could they be members of a lost tribe of cats?  Are there some
cats among us who have, through the generations, lost contact
with the Mother Ship and have only a vestigial memory of their
true mission?  Have my cats perhaps never had the advantage of
training with the cadre?  Have they never had a course in how to
make full and proper use of a human slave?

It's a sad thought.