So Is There Any Particular Reason Why You're Sitting In The Water Bowl, Human?

So it's 7:00 AM and you've just woken up - you're shuffling your way into the bathroom to do your business and start the day. You close the door and groggily turn on the water, take your clothes off, and climb in. Thirty seconds later, the door is flung wide open and in saunters a cat.

Or maybe you're trying to concentrate on the loo and suddenly you hear scratching noises on the door. Then it stops. A minute later, *SCRITCH SCRITCH*. Then nothing. Finally it's *SCRITCH SCRITCH SCRITCH SCRATCH SCRITCH SCRATCH SCRITCH SCRITCH MEOW SCRITCH SCRITCH* until you just give up and let them in, where they proceed to sit down right between your legs, peering up and watching you intently.

There are a lot of theories going around about why cats enjoy spending so much time with you in the bathroom. One popular explanation is that your cat is like a child and will only do more of whatever you don't want him to do. Tell a kid to stop flicking the light switch on and off? They'll do it more. Purposefully try to keep your cat out of the bathroom? No matter how hard or how long, they'll do whatever it takes to get on the other side of the door. Mr. Jingles has never let you tell him what to do and he's not about to start now.

Theory #2.

The one theory I can get behind is that your cat wants to understand you just as much as you want to understand him. When you sit on that white porcelain thing or immerse yourself in a tub of water, he really just doesn't get it.

In other words, he thinks you're a freak.

In a prior post, I commented on one of my cats chillaxin' in the litter box and I explained that this wasn't a typical behavior. They don't sit in their litter boxes, so why do we sit in giant water bowls? Cats don't like large bodies of water. The fact that you don't yell and screech and flail around every time you get in is a foreign concept to him.

H2 NO!

On Tuesday, I brought up a theory about why cats sleep so much. It's just that - a theory. I am not a cat. I do not speak to cats (well, I do, but they just look at me in disdain). I don't actually know what cats are like as aliens. I can only assume and make educated guesses based on the evidence I've seen.

Giving a cat a bath once in a while is both necessary and dangerous. If you don't mind the bloodshed, it's also hilarious. If you've never had the fortune of cleaning a cat, think of it as washing a bar of soap that's covered in cactus needles. And razor blades.

About 70% of the Earth's surface is covered in water. Humans are 65% water. Cats are 65% water. They drink it. They throw their toys on it. They'll sit out in the rain. But if you put them in a tub with two inches of water in it, oh man, they will hurt you. And should you survive the aforementioned ordeal, they will spend days plotting their revenge. Or until their fur dries and you give them some tasty noms.

To be fair, if I looked like this when I got out of the shower, I'd probably be out for blood too.

My theory is that cats have a terrible phobia of large bodies of water. Understandably so, because you can drown in water. Planet Felinus (or whatever you want to call it) is only made up of about 25-40% water, making it significantly easier for cats to avoid anything water related besides little puddles and rain. This enables the phobia, because it didn't give the Original Cats a chance to get over the fear. If many, many generations of cats never see oceans or ponds or bath tubs, that fear will become ingrained into the general personality of cats.

Like all unique creatures, different cats handle this phobia in different ways. Some take the cautious, curious road, such as watching the water faucet for hours on end or staring at you while you take a bath in utter fascination. Others act on their phobia more aggressively, yowling angrily at the sky to make it stop raining or trying to "kill" the bowls of water they're supposed to drink from. No, seriously. We have a two pound rock sitting in the cats' drinking bowl because one of the cats kept tipping the water over and spilling a liter of it on the floor. The laminate wood floor. With plenty of grooves for the water to slip under. Oh, whatever. He sure showed that bowl of water who was boss. Again and again and again.