I Spanked My Cat

It's been so damn serious up on this blog that I had to post something to break the mood. Can't talk about ideologies of racial superiority all the time – that makes Jack a dull boy.

So I have decided to do what many of the legions of blogs out there do – post about something completely irrelevant and personal. No, this is not a sign of the times or a change in the blog – it's just a function of the fact that I have the cutest, yet most annoying cat ever.

And the annoying thing is that Orangee (오렌지) – the little bugger's name – knows he's cute – all trying to look coy and whatnot. Well, I guess he deserves his prince-complex, since he is a pretty good-looking cat. I mean, that's the reason I picked his ass up off the street out of the box of cats being raised by a whole bunch of middle-aged Korean men; I don't know what was weirder, actually – the sight of cats in a box in Namdaemun Market or the fact that the men were treating these kittens like their own children.

"You're going to take gooood care of him, right?" asked the man who was giving me the orange-and-white one that later became my little, lazy devil. It was kind of touching, yet disturbing.

My rationale was that I needed a pet to get my borderline high blood pressure down, a condition caused partially by my previous place of employment, which was like working in a lunatic asylum. So one day, as I was accompanying a friend to the markets in Namdaemun, I spied these ajussis hovering over a box filled with cats. The bright orange one was just such a looker that I made the strange and still-shocking decision to become a cat owner. Cats are clean, ya know – dogs weren't an option with my schedule.

Many months later, my frisky cat has grown an enormous ass and gotten increasingly lazier. He's been snipped down there – an operation I took pictures of, by the way – which thankfully slowed his roll. He was always jumping and leaping and bouncing off the walls; I just wanted a lazy orange cat. I guess he was young. Now, he's pretty frisky for a cat with no working male glands, meaning he lies on his side to paw at cat toys. He's also taken to licking himself in strange positions. It's quite unnerving to onlookers, and I would think humiliating to be seen. Therefore, I made sure to take a picture.

He's also been joined by an all-black cat named Ebony. His name is Orangee (Korean pronunciation, please). Together, they play with each other all day while I'm gone, and generally just sleep in my general vicinity when I'm home. They're two lazy, well-pampered mofos. "Ebony...and Orangee...live together in perfect harmony...!" Yes, I am now an annoying cat person. At least I recognize my sickness.

But here's my "dilemma." I've always raised my cats like dogs, punishing them on the spot and spanking them – or simply scaring the bejeezus out of them with my alpha-cat animal yells. The latter usually is enough. But sometimes, like today, I have to spank my cat. Yes – I'm a cat-spanker. Does that make me a bad man?

See, though – the way I see it, my cats are well-trained. They come when called, and scatter when I make the *snake-hiss* sound. They know better than to go wandering in my closets – they do sometimes, like today – but they know they're not supposed to. So on days like today, I have to get medieval on a cat's ass.

I do feel bad. But I believe in good pet discipline.

Does this picture make him look innocent, and me a bad man?

Don't be fooled. He's one naughty cat.

And his ass can handle it.

Obviously, I am fishing for comments.