On one hand they are pampered and provided for, and all their transgressions are forgiven. If you observe the day to day life of a house pet, you get a conflicting sense of whether or not they are living the good life. But the cat offers a deeper insight into the existence of royalty than that. This is the reason why many people accept the existence of monarchy in the twenty-first century. By keeping him as part of the family, we let emotion trump rationality. If we got rid of him the furniture would be less tatty and we would spend less time bleeding. Visitors would be more likely to return, and keeping him is not cheap. Rationally, we would be better off without the cat. In many ways having the cat as the most sociopathic member of the family is a real stroke of luck. Perfect families don’t exist, and would be no fun if they did.
Families are supposed to be odd, angular bodies which are crazy in their own unique way. We accept him for what he is, and would miss him terribly if he was not there. It is true that, despite everything, my family are all extremely fond of the cat.
By this I don’t mean that monarchy is flawed but essentially familiar, and therefore loveable.
Living with this cat has given me great insight into the role of monarchy in modern society. He does this with all the sincerity of a marketing message on the side of an overly friendly bottle of juice. He will then start rubbing against your legs and making a noise which I think is supposed to be a purr. The only time our cat expresses anything remotely resembling affection is when you stand in the corner of the kitchen where the cat food is kept. There have been dark evenings where I have found him staring at me with his cold, unfeeling eyes and had an instinctive urge to cross myself. Pleasant cat noises, such as meowing and purring, are not his thing. He is jet black, too big, and he makes the type of noises usually emitted by demons with toothache. As far as he’s concerned, people are things to scratch and furniture is something to shred. This might not immediately appear relevant, but stick with it. There’s no easy way to say this, but our cat is not very nice.
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