Have you noticed how odd humans are. I am three legged. I lost my right hand back leg in a road traffic accident. It was hell at the time and to begin with I found it difficult to cope. Now I can manage perfectly well. My other three legs enable me to do most of what I want - leaping on and off the bed and chairs, hunting mice, keeping warm by the Aga, rubbing up against my human, Jilly.
Yet humans have this odd attitude to me. "Poor little thing," I heard your human say. "She looks so odd without one leg. Does she manage all right?" All through this blather was a note of pity. Why are humans so obsessed with what we look like? Why pity?
Yours disgruntedly
Figgi
Dear Figgi,
Humans are visual animals. They can't hear very well and they find smelling almost impossible. The only smells that get through to them are urine, poo and sweat. Those fine smells that distinguish one cat from another, or a cat on heat from a neutered cat, or even the smell of an anxious cat.... they can't get it.
The result is that they rely too much on their eyes. Add to that they have an odd culture. (Yes, I call it culture though some cats argue that humans can't think and therefore don't have culture at all.) They prize youth over age, the perfect body over the imperfect body. This means they discriminate among themselves against the elderly, the ugly, amputees, or those of a different colour.
They go to huge lengths to hide imperfections with injections of a poisonous substance in their faces, they have noses cut and reshaped, clothes that squeeze their shape, prostheses to hide amputated limbs etc. Among humans imperfect or disabled specimens are judged and found wanting. They even try to do the same to us by inventing cat shows.
Cat wisdom show how foolish they are. Figgi, you are fine in my eyes. Just another cat. And I still love my pet human despite her now imperfect shape and wrinkles. She smells right which is what matters. I am sure you love Jilly, even if she is no longer a breeding human. They all look fine to us.
We really are the superior species.
George.