NASCAR Cats

It’s Sunday and Sunday means NASCAR day.

We cats love NASCAR, especially my sister Charlotte.  There was a time when she sat in front of TV and watched the race very intently.  Sometimes she sat on a chair or a box and watched, sometimes she stood on her hind legs to get a closer look.  

It’s not surprising that Charlotte likes NASCAR as she was named after one of the tracks.  That’s right, the Sunday she joined this family as a small kitten, the drivers were set to race at Charlotte, so mom named her Charlotte.

Watching her watching the race was entertainment in itself.  She would move her head as the cars went by, touch the TV screen in an attempt to grab one of the cars, and take a peek at either side of the TV to find out where the cars were coming from and where they were going. 

Of course, at night, the cats in this family perform their own version of NASCAR.  Sometimes Charlotte and Mickey are the racers; sometimes it’s Mickey and Gabriel; and sometimes all three of them have a go.

It starts off quite innocently.  A game of patty cake, a swipe at the head or a grab and bite at a tail.  One moment they’re playing, the next it’s a case of ‘Gentlemen, start your engines’ and they’re off.

During such a race it’s best that the humans stay out of their way because they race at top speed and cat paws don’t come equipped with breaks.  They race from the living room to the bedroom and back again, jump on tables and leap over chairs.  

The funniest of racers is Gabriel.  He has a lot of fluff between the padding of his paws, causing him to lose his footing once in a while.  Mickey and Charlotte who don’t have that fluff are able to take corners with amazing accuracy, but Gabriel frequently miscalculates a corner and goes flying.  When this happens it’s quite funny.  When he regains his composure he stands there with a dumb look on his face, wondering what the hell happened.

Me, I don’t take part in those races.  The races on TV don’t interest me (if anything the zoom zoom of the cars puts me to sleep) and racing cats are of not much interest to me either.  Why exhaust myself running around when I can curl up in a ball and sleep.