My cat, Tilly

Thursday 3rd November 2022 Cats don’t understand entropy . . . the Third Law of Thermodynamics remains a mystery to them . . . This morning this thought crossed my mind as I was washing the previous evening’s cat dishes . . . eight cats generates a lot of cat dirty dishes . . I was being watched by one of our female Siamese, Tilly, who was perched on the draining board in the utility room . . . “You know what I am doing, don’t you, Tilly?”. I asked her . . . . “I am preventing entropy - if I didn’t do this the universe, or our little corner of it would descend into chaos” . . . Tilly sniffed and had a lick of her bottom . . if you have been around cats for any length of time you will know this is a major thing for them. . . . . I have a cat collar identity disc that belonged to one of my sadly still missed Devons , Lucas. . . on one side it bore his name and our telephone number, and the legend “Reward if found lost” . . . . We stopped using it because it was costing me a fortune every time he stepped out of doors. . . . the local kids would hide behind the back fence, entice Lucas over the fence, and then bring him to the front door . . “We found your lost cat, sir, is there a reward?” Anyway . . the other side of the disc says. “I Can Lick my Balls” . . . Cats . . don’t ya love ‘em . . . . I thought of telling Tilly the reason I spend two hours a week hoovering and dusting on a Thursday morning was also my small part in preventing the slow descent into entropy that would surely happen if I stayed in bed instead . . . the Hird Law cannot be denied . . And if the Third Law doesn’t get us, the incineration of the planets nearest the Sun will when it uses up its nuclear fuel and becomes a red giant . . . in approximately 5 billion years by my £25 Timex EverRight . . . I found a simple way to explain entropy once . . . . In the animal rescue charity shop we had a large bookcase . . . . it was part of my regular morning tasks on a Saturday to tidy it up . . all the thrillers on the left side, in alphabetical order . . . all the romance stuff on the right side, similarly alphabetised . . . During the course of the week the customers would pull books out, put them back anywhere, purchase some, leaving gaps . . . That, I told Merrille (that’s her real name), was entropy . . a slow decay into chaos . . . On Saturday mornings I would fix everything again . . . that’s it all good again, Merrille, I told her . . . What I did was restore order . . .but to do so I had to expend energy . . it was hard work sorting it all out and putting everything in order again . . making it all rickety-boo . . . One day, the universe will be a dark place, with no stars . . no living things . . . the suns burnt out . . . no energy left to fix things . . the universe’s books will remain in disarray . . . NB - I always imagined the end of humanity would be a Red Giant, but sadly, we know that isn’t the case . . we will be an extinct species long before that, when climate changes reaches its extreme zenith . . It was nice knowing ya . . . . Well . . . some of you anyway . . .