Needz Moar Z's

Cats sleep about 13-16 hours a day, although particularly lazy cats might average between 18-20. Twenty minutes after a two hour nap, they collapse on your favorite chair in exhaustion, ready for another snooze session.

The big question on everyone's mind is why. Why do cats sleep so much? You'd think for a species bent on taking over the world, they'd dedicate more of their time and resources to, you know, world domination and stuff.

When people sleep, they sleep deep. My mother often jokes about how a bomb could go off right outside my window and I wouldn't so much as roll over. She's probably right. For cats, it's a little different.

For the most part, cats sleep very lightly. If you touch a cat, his head will pop right up and he'll be wide awake. Their ears rotate and register all the sounds that go on around them. They're very much aware.

Now, I'm going to let you in on a little secret: Believe it or not, cats only need to sleep for two hours a day. The rest of the time? It goes to charging the mother ship.

When you see a cat curled up with its eyes closed and you poke it and it doesn't budge (but it's breathing!) and you wiggle it some more and it still doesn't respond, it's the cat getting its 40 winks. When it's in that light-sleeping stage though, all the energy it gains from rest is going into space.

Part of the reason that our own space program isn't as advanced as we like to imagine it in science fiction is that launching and propelling a craft through space requires massive amounts of energy, which we only know how to provide with fuel and water (solar power is still in the works). The reason cats have been able to travel to other planets is in part due to their ingenious ways of harvesting energy - through the little aliens themselves.

When a cat does its so-called "sleep," it's really radiating a unique form of energy that the mother ship picks up on. Now, in a single nap, a cat may only give off enough energy to power a light bulb, but when you combine all the energy of all the millions of cats on this planet, well then, it looks like you're going places.

Tails: Not Just Handles Anymore

Cats are known for their grace and agility. There are countless stories of cats who fall from tall trees and land on their feet, walking away with such nonchalance you'd think it's something they did on a daily basis. How many cat commercials have there been where the star cat elegantly strolls into the room, waiting to be served noms in a crystal dish?

Ask anyone - a vet, a supposed "cat lover," or even a random person on the street and they'll tell you that the cat's tail is what gives it the balance to crawl in high, narrow spaces. I'm sorry, but that's just not true.

Cat Fanciers Association uses the following as a description for our little extra terrestrials:

This elegant cat gracefully glides across the room on its tall, slender legs.

Now, if any of the members of the CFA actually owned a cat, the description would be more like:

This elongatedly furball waddles over to the foodbowl, but decides to plop down first and have a 20 minute bath in the middle of the living room while you're trying to do housework.

There's very little about the common cat that can be associated with grace and poise. At this very moment, there's about a pound of meow mix scattered all over the kitchen floor because someone crashed into it while running around. There have been many mornings where I've come downstairs to find dining room chairs tipped over or curtains lying in a heap. Further evidence can be found here.

The tail, I believe, has a useful purpose in the lives of cats, even if it isn't for balance. Much like an antenna on an old-fashioned cellphones (or, and we're going way back here, on televisions), cats use their tails for easier communication with the mothership. An erect tail can mean many things, from being frightened or being happy to see you, but it can also mean that the cat is transmitting messages to and from space.