The other day at work I beheld one of God’s most curious, attractive and intelligent creatures: the cat. It was at close range-on the bonnet of my car, in fact. What transpired in the next twenty minutes convinced me that cat pet insurance and cat accessories are quite unnecessary. Cats are a law unto themselves. They have a cunning scheme of world domination, quite obviously own their masters and treat them and everybody else with superior disdain.

Even if you used cat proof fencing these silky smooth operators would find a way to get to the shops and get their hair coiffed and groomed and their nails done at the same time-the bill, of course, no concern to them.

I was briefly resting in my car in between sales calls. It was a bright sunny winter’s day and I was at a Seniors Retirement facility. Whilst nurses and those in their care were planning their day, some taking the sun, a black cat with green eyes jumped on the bonnet of my car and started preening itself.

And I mean-it went to town! It started licking one haunch then the other. Then it looked around furtively and started giving its lower legs a tongue massage, then moving on to its belly where it cleaned and straightened any disheveled tufts of hair.

I was captivated and it seemed the cat did not see me at all through the windscreen, even though I was no more than three feet from it. Perhaps it was the glare of the harsh light that prevented this?-I wondered. The preening carried on for quite a while. At one point the local sphinx locked eyes with me and then, obviously unimpressed with the perceived level of threat, lifted its head imperiously into the crisp winter air and carried on with its feline grooming.

I felt a curious mixture of amusement, awe and envy at the creature’s complete indifference to me and its surroundings-an indifference combined with an aura of peace within itself that exuded from every pore.

Eventually once thoroughly coiffed and preened, it jumped off my bonnet without so much as a “thank you” for providing it a platform in the sunshine, and wandered casually in through a door where it was welcomed by one of the senior denizens with a smile and a plate of milk.

I on the other hand had to consider how I was going to attain my weekly quota in the world of humanity and commerce where most of my groceries and provisions did not come so easy. Who was it, I thought, that was the one really in charge here? The cat or I, the latest soppy human to provide it with its current lodging?

Cats have been around since the Sphinx and beyond and were at one time worshiped. Perhaps some dim, ancient memory surfaces in our modern specimens causing them to aspire to their old, exalted position.

Do they need insurance at all? Do they get sick? Well, …