Cat or Rats?

The government is like a cat. Sure it can be silky and cuddly and its purr can lull you into a feeling of contentment, but, like a cat, it can purr one moment, and draw blood the next.

The New Year is here, and I imagine the government is going to want us to pay taxes all over again. What did they do with this year’s taxes? Did they play with the dollars until the life drained out of them, or did they buy every cat toy on eBay, for double the price, and have them sent FedEx Overnight? I’ll bet the government is going to start whining about taxes, just like it did last year. And, like a cat, they’ll keep meowing, and meowing until you give them what they want. If you don’t, you’re likely to feel the sting of claws raking down your legs.

You may think it is worth it, that they appreciate you, and want to use the money to make your life better, but my cat just let me know I’m chopped liver. He got a new cat tower, and he no longer wants to snuggle into the bed I have for him in whatever room I’m in. He wants to sleep on the top level of the tower and to heck with which room I’m in. It is the same with the government. They’re in the top level of their towers and do they care if you are living in your car, or a cardboard box? Well, they might care about the cardboard box—cats love cardboard boxes—but they don’t care about you. All they care about is the food bin or your wallet.

It wouldn’t be so bad if the government actually worked for the money, but they spend their entire day, eating, sleeping, bickering and spitting at each other, playing with toys, making a mess, and expecting you to clean it up. They overindulge, eat forbidden things, hawk it up, and expect you to continue on as if you don’t know they’ll do it again the moment your back is turned. Local government is just as bad as the feds. Rest assured they will want you to pay your property taxes, sales tax, and local income tax all over again, even though you paid them last year. Have they never heard of recycling?

And don’t think that a gray cat is better than an orange cat, a tabby is better than a calico, or a Siamese is better than a Persian. In the long run, they all want the same thing. They want you to support them in the style they’ve decided they deserve. You can try to limit their intake, but the moment you leave the room they are up on that counter, pilfering from your dinner platter.

So why do we put up with it, with them? The rats. R-A-T-S. They have us convinced rats carry various plagues and without government/cats, all of mankind would succumb. Nations would collapse. We’d all be reduced to pirating passing ships.

Admittedly, they eat the occasional spider, and protect us by shooting down incoming birds. Once in a while they refund a stimulus shrew, or give us a gopher. There is no denying they provide that sense of well-being only the vibrating purr can offer. And on that rare occasion, their antics even provide a laugh.

Might as well dust off those 1040 forms.

Happy New Year.