Published on: 14 Jun 07:41

Ever had to swerve your car to dodge a cat scampering across your path? Ever had to brake to a complete stop to avoid running over a cat just squatting on the road, staring up at you like a genial moron?

Two hours ago I experienced the latter. I couldn't believe it. I spied ahead something resembling a paper bag, twitching in the breeze. Must be. No animal would be so daft as to just halt right on the road, right? Right?

Oh dear. Driving closer proved exactly that daftness. Daftness owned by a particularly snooty-looking Persian cat, sprawling lazily across the centre line like it owned the dang thing.

And not just any old location on any old street. Its choice of drizzlebathing location was a choke point formed by residents' cars parked along both sides, such that two-way traffic must take turns passing through. The cat was reclining right in the choke point's most narrowest and most chokiest point.

I stopped two metres away, scratching my head. It meowed at me. I honked. It meowed. I honked again. It just sneered down its nose at me.

From the other direction a bus approached. The cat flopped onto the road surface and gave its back a lovely asphalt scratching. And meowed. Now the bus stopped. The driver spied me apparently blocking his vehicle's passage, scowled, but then saw the cat too. By this time I'd figured enough was enough, exited the car, attempted to scoop and transport the cat to the pavement whilst suppressing the urge to dropkick it, but my approach at last galvanised it into motion, and it scampered into a nearby garden and away.

Anyone ever witnessed other pets behaving like this? They'd typically get run over and killed rather quickly, surely? That's happened to more than one of my own family's cats. This latest cat has no idea of the danger it's in. You can't wise-up from your blunders if your blunders squidge you into a roadkill pancake, can you. Maybe Wellington could begin a programme designed to safely ram and impact cats? Just give them a fright but cause no permanent damage. Radio-controlled toy cars, perhaps. Tiny cars. Or breed stronger cats? Cats able to take a punch from even quite large vehicles and survive. We could ram them to our hearts' content.