Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a purpose. - Garrison Keillor

Anybody in need of a cat that glows in the dark? When the power goes out, it might come in handy...really, what will they come up with next?

I don't like cats very much because I lived with a crazy one in Baltimore. She did keep the mice to a minimum, which was handy because when living in a rowhouse whose walls are practically infused with rodents, it's good to have a cat around.

She was an Abysinian cat, one of those weird looking ones like the one to our left, with ears that made her strangely batlike. The black coat helped add to the bat image. She was also strangely doglike. She'd sit at the door and wait for her owner to come home, and she'd run to the door when the doorbell rang. And if you yelled "Topo!" she'd come running.

One day I was holding her in the living room and a dog walked by. Topo freaked out. By freaked out, she clawed the hand that was holding her - mine - and bit my thumb. Her tooth got pretty far in. This was pleasant.

So the next day I go to work and my boss says, you know, cats are dirty, you probably ought to get that checked out. So I went to the doctor and it turns out that when you get bitten by a cat, you need antiboiotics...Cat teeth are long and sharp, and such wounds are hard to clean and easy to get infected. Who knew?

But a glow in the dark cat might be worth it...