Catatonia

by RAF KATIGBAK

OMG: the President of the United States of America is black. The President. Of the United States. Of America. Black. Forgive me if, even after over a week, I’m still in shock, but this is huge. There is one word that keeps coming into my head: finally. Finally people have woken up. Finally people have learned to get up and do something about their situation. And finally some Americans might get over some outdated prejudices (maybe). I am, in a word, relieved.

But I’m also scared. Scared that Obama might not be up to the task. With the country being more off-track than ever, the road ahead of him is unbelievably difficult. Where race might have been his ally at some point, it might only serve to add weight to every move he makes from now on. He’s the first black president of the United States: he best not fuck up. I’m scared that if we come to the end of his term and things don’t balance on the positive, we’ll end up with a chorus of his detractors uttering those three painful words “told you so.”

But hearing the outcome last Tuesday was inspiring. So inspiring that I can’t help but wonder, if the American election happened before the Canadian election, would our outcome have been different? Would voter turnout have been so low and the Conservatives still been in power? Who knows? For now, I am elated. Indeed, change has come and hopefully this will mark a turning point not only in politics, but also in human relations. And so a feeling of change has come not only to America but, it seems, the world. How the world sees the U.S. has shifted slightly too. Upon hearing the results last Tuesday, a French friend of mine graciously conceded to a mutual American friend, “Hey, maybe you guys aren’t all complete morons after all.” Wow. That was touching.

In this spirit of change, I have decided to become a better person. I have decided to follow all of my friends’ advice and improve my life by making the most positive change possible. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I’m getting cats.

Okay, okay, calm down. Just sit down and stop screaming. I know this is hard to believe. After all, I am not a cat person. Don’t get me wrong. I love cats. I just hate cat owners. To clarify, I don’t hate people who own cats. I mean, it’s no big deal if you have a cat. But once you make it a big deal, when all you do is talk about your cat, and if you can’t have a conversation without somehow relating it back to your fucking feline friend, that’s where we have a problem.

“Oh, I heard you just lost your job and got kicked out of your apartment. That is terrible. It reminds me of the time Mr. Snufflepuss lost his favourite toy. He wouldn’t eat for a week, not even the Fling-ama-String I bought him could make him happy. I brought him to the pet psychiatrist and he was sure it was some kind of blockage from latent abandonment issues, I’m thinking of taking him to cat yoga…” Usually, when this happens, I just nod my head, and then sneak off and secretly take a dump in Mr. Snufflepuss’s litter box, just to add another mystery to the equation.

So what happens when you get cats? Is there some part of the human brain that’s stimulated by owning a kitty? In the same way cats go bananas for catnip, maybe there’s a region in the lower cortex that’s stimulated by cat dander and it makes you obsessively log every single thing your cat does in a digital photo album on Facebook. “Here’s Captain Rumpleteaser jumping on a windowsill. Silly kitty.” I can almost hear Bob Saget’s anthropomorphic voicing grating like nails on a chalkboard. I hereby give each and every one of you permission to slap me in the face with a pooperscooper if you see a single “I Can Has Cheezburger?”-type caption on my page.

I do like cats though. They can be pretty fuckin’ cute. The two that I’m supposed to adopt are rescued from the SPCA. One has some kind of inner ear problem that makes him cock his head and walk crooked, and the other has weird goop in his eye that makes him fart a lot. They are funny looking, weird and totally broken. In short, they’re my kind of cats. Some cat haters think felines are just lazy wastes of skin that just lounge around. But hey, if you could sit around licking your genitals all day, would you ever really leave the couch? Only Cirque du Soleil contortionists can answer that. Oh my God, you should see them when they sleep though, one tucks his wittle head under the other’s wittle paws… oh no, it’s happening! Shoot me now!

RIFF-RAFF@SYMPATICO.CA