Rasha al Raisi - Many people hate visiting our house. The reason being is the number of cats that welcomes them at the gate. Through the years, I’ve noticed that visitors had developed three main ways when crossing the area between the gate and the main door: 1) Walk calmly while admiring the number and the colour of the cats’ fur. 2) Show clear annoyance and kick whatever cat comes in the way. 3) Yelp and jump from one tile to the other, trying to dodge as many cats as possible like in a video game.
There are of course some extreme cases like the religious studies teacher who kept screaming at the door and reading Quran verses to ward off the “evil black cats”. Another was the furniture maker who refused to get into the house, to discover later that he suffers from gatophobia or fear of cats.
Of course, I do sympathise as cats display the sort of intelligence that no cat owners find spooky. Take for example my male cat Mansoor. Like many cats around the world, Mansoor believes that he owns the house and that we’re his mere servants. When the doorbell rings, Mansoor runs out to check who’s at the door. He even sits with us when we welcome guests. A colleague of my mum didn’t look comfortable having him around, but she kept insisting that she’s used to cats as her sister owns many Persians in her house. She marvelled at Mansoor’s soft and shiny hair and asked about his breed. I smiled and said that he’s a stray on a good diet, that’s all. Mansoor kept staring at her — the way all cats do — and she leaned forward to my mum asking in a whisper: “Does he understand what we’re saying?”
I still get comments regarding “the evil cats you keep at home”. I hear gasps when I tell people that some of my cats share my bedroom. A cousin of mine sent me an SMS long message with a silly story (written in Saudi dialect) about the dangers of keeping cats as most of them are possessed and could cause serious problems between married couples. After all, men can never compete with cats for women’s attention. My cat intelligence speech always fall on deaf ears as most people shiver and mumble something about them being “changed”. Yet, the best comments I get always comes when I go cat food shopping. Pushing a cart filled with cat biscuits and canned food always get people talking.
Once there was this cashier who started asking me questions regarding what to feed her Persian cat, who suffers from severe hair fall. Before I could open my mouth to answer, a woman in the cashier row next to us shouted that her cats suffer from the same problem and that she shouldn’t feed them tuna. In another occasion, a lady and her daughter asked me for which animal charity I worked.
But sometimes the comments are too blunt for my taste. Recently, an old man commented that I had more cat food in my shopping cart than that of humans. The cashier was even more frank. She gave me a stern look and said: “You should feed yourself before feeding your cats.” With a shocked smile on my face, my mind developed a customer service training programme within seconds including a PowerPoint slide that said: “10 things that you shouldn’t say to paying customers”!
I really wish the people’s view of cats change and see them for what they’re really are: Smart and funny with loads of love and affection to give.
Rasha al Raisi is a certified skills trainer and the author of:
The World According to Bahja. rashabooks@yahoo.com
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