United Cats examines the calico question: Are all calicos insane? This is not a hypothetical question. Begging the issue of whether any cat is really sane, I will examine the calico question in some depth. And I am not castigating calicos in any way, I just maintain that most of them are just plain weird. Their people seem to love them all the more for it, and more than one reader has suggested an alternate question, are all calico owners insane?

What is a calico? A calico is a white cat with substantial orange and black markings. However, several readers have suggested that any three coloured cat, especially the tortoiseshell, should be considered to be a calico. From my own experiences I can only but agree. For the official scientific definition of calico see torties.

Much of my evidence comes from experiences with my own dear calico, Beanie. She has been an odd cat since she was a tiny little thing. Her only sign of affection as a kitten was at 3am when she would awaken me by licking my nose. And as she grew up she developed more quirks. She took to severely meowing my friends. She would sneak up behind one of them, meow at them like her life depended on it, and then run away. This gets her some very odd looks to say the least. My sister thinks she is saying "Where's my brain? Has anyone seen my brain?" This is possible but it might be giving Beanie too much credit.

And many other people's calicos (OPCs) exhibit unusual behaviour. Keiko loves to go in the shower or bath with her person. In fact several correspondents have reported that their calicos like to take showers, sleep in the wet sink, and roll in the wet shower stall. And Keiko is the only cat in the known universe who doesn't like me. To this day she bites me and scratches me if I so much as think of petting her. And I have known her for years, everyone else she gets along just fine with.

Keiko is more discriminating than Beanie. Beanie believes that every human she meets is an axe-murdering sheep-stealing mutant until proven otherwise. So far no one but me has been proven otherwise, and I am apparently only on probation. Beanie's dietary preferences also call her sanity in question. She disdains most cat food, but loves Otter Pops and pastry. Other reported calico dietary preferences include blueberry yoghurt, chili and glass! Unusual eating styles have also been reported, one calico prefers to lie languidly on the floor and fish kibbles from her bowl one at a time, one paw thrown over her forehead as if saying "Poor Me!"

Calicos always exhibit odd or downright suspicious behaviour. More than one reader has reported intercepting strange or downright conspiratorial e-mail intended for their calico. Most calicos plot endlessly (and you thought your cat was just staring into space!) to improve their own station in life, no matter what it takes. A calico named Taffy disappeared from home once and was missing for over six months. When a substantial reward was offered for her recovery she was quickly located hiding out at a nearby stable. And shortly thereafter a large unexplained deposit was made into her bank account. Coincidence? I think not. Another calico named Boo deliberately hid inside several pieces of expensive furniture, which had to be cut open at great expense to retrieve her. Kickbacks to Boo from a prestigious furniture repair firm were later intercepted by her suspicious owners.

Knowing their predilection for plotting it is then no surprize that calicos are often reported as psychoceramic, staring for hours into a fixed spot in space. And when they are not psychoceramic, they often fall prey to the psycho kitty syndrome. This is where the calico's eyes get fully dilated, and then she flies around the house at extremely high speed as if the demons of hell were after her. Almost every calico correspondent has referred to this behaviour in one fashion or another. A calico named Jessie has expanded brilliantly on this concept by leaping onto her human's head at the height of such activity, preferably at 430 AM.

In the course of my exhaustive research I have collected several revealing quotes about calicos, some of them from famous celebrities whose identities unfortunately must be concealed.

Nightsheyd: (when asked how her cats were):

"Insane...after all I don't think any cat with a calico as a mom can be perfectly sane."

Beanie:

"If you can't be a good example, be a horrible warning."

Arnold S: (When told his calico was missing)

"She'll be back."

Ernest Hemingway:

"One calico just leads to another."

Colonial American Proverb:

"You will always be lucky if you know how to make friends with strange calicos."

Technical Note: In the Hemingingway quote and colonial proverb above the word "cat(s)" was replaced by the word "calico." The celebrity quotes are fictional and satirical in nature.

*"Recognition" is included in this page with the kind permission of the author, Mary Margaret Carlisle. She was born in 1942 and currently resides in Webster, Texas. The poem was copyrighted in 1996 under the title of "Odd Indeed" and in 1997 and 1999 under the title of "Recognition." The name of the calico for whom the poem was written is "Little Girl." Permission will be generously granted for its publication upon request, poet may be contacted at Mary.M.Carlisle@prodigy.net More of her poetry can be read at Sol-Magazine.

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