You’re No Cat

My cat woke me up last night, and then kept me up batting a little plastic spring around the floor and generally making an ass of himself.

First, let’s clear this up: Cats aren’t nocturnal.

They’re crepuscular. That’s a strange-sounding word that simply means “most active during the twilight hours.”

Bullshit, this was 3 am. 3 am is never twilight in southeastern PA. Now, I’ve been to Sweden, Finland, and Norway, and in the summertime, 3 am can indeed be twilight in those areas. But not here.

Regardless, crepuscular means they are adapted to seeing much better than you do in the low light. They don’t have perfect night vision, but they don’t need much light at all — the moon, a porch light, a street light down the block — to see just fine.

It’s the rods. They got a lot more than you do.

When you stumble over the coffee table or step on an errant shoe in the dark, it’s so tempting to look at the cat and wish you could see like they do. It seems like such an advantage.

But you got the cones.

Which means you see much better color and detail in both near and far distances than your cat.

Every time you look around at others and the world, you have a choice. You can continue to wish you were like the cat, or you could recognize the advantages you have.