Men: How to Sort the Best from the Boring with One Easy Observation

Does he love a cat?

Bob and Banger. Photo reproduced by kind permission of Bob Merckel

In my classroom, I had my pupils well trained.

‘What’s the best word in the world?’ I would say.

‘Cat, Miss,’ they would chant.

This was important. I was raising future cat people. More importantly, I was raising future cat men.

I had one little boy who had very complex learning difficulties and was easily stressed and prone to lashing out. He had a cat with the dashing name of Errol. When things got too much for this boy, when his face and fists were rigid with rage, I would simply ask how Errol was and what Errol had been up to. Immediately the boy’s shoulders would relax and a smile would spread across his little face and we would chat about cats, how superior they were and how right was Mark Twain:

If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.

I have no worries about this pupil. He is already a promising cat boy who will develop into a cat man. Mind, there’s cat man and there’s cat lady and the latter is a completely different kindle of kittens. We all know about cat lady—the cardigans, the cat hairs, the craziness, the witchcraft.