THE PAPER WHALE

Wendy the Cat – The Biggest Meower

Wendy is fat. I can’t sugarcoat it. I read once that the way to tell if your cat is overweight is to see if you can feel her ribs when you pet her stomach. When I pet Wendy’s stomach, she goes, “mraaoow!” indignantly and bats me with her paws, and there are no ribs to be found. She’s not obese, and she seems comfortable with herself, and she has a really pretty face, but, you know, if she were a human going on a trip to the beach, she would probably not be baring her midriff.

The thing is, if you think about this in human terms, there are plenty of people who have the same problem; if you petted many of our stomachs, you wouldn’t feel our ribs either, but most people have the tact not to say anything about it, especially if our health is not being endangered. Why don’t people have this same tact when dealing with cats?

Every time we host a guest (usually the kind who does not have pets of their own), the guest will remark, “That cat is really big!” “Has she always been that big?” “What does she eat?” “Is she pregnant?” No, she is not pregnant. Wendy is very chaste; in fact, she abhors other cats. And while Wendy is generally very stoical, I wonder if her feelings don’t get a little hurt once in a while.