By Christopher Moore
The other night, my girl and I were watching one of those disaster documentaries—you know the type. Tornadoes, hurricanes, “bomb cyclones” (which honestly sounds like Taco Bell’s $4.99 stomach roulette combo). They always have the same recipe: slow pan over wreckage, dramatic violins, and some guy named Earl explaining how he “never thought it’d happen here” while standing in front of what used to be a double-wide and is now just modern art made out of toothpicks. Hypnotic stuff.
Anyway, this particular show had a moment that nearly broke Kate. A man evacuated during a hurricane and—get this—left his cat in the attic. Not the living room. Not with the neighbors. The attic. Like, “Here you go, Mr. Whiskers, enjoy the floodwaters and fiberglass insulation buffet.” And then the show just moved on. No resolution. No “cat update.” Just left it hanging like the poor thing was auditioning for Lost. Kate was distraught. “Did the cat live?!” she kept asking. They gave us nothing. A straight-up cliffhanger.
Which naturally spiraled us into our disaster plan. Turns out Kate has already mapped this thing out like she’s running FEMA from the living room. The dogs? Covered. Even Dakota, whose big furry ass will probably slow us down like an anchor, has a role in the plan.
And that’s when I opened my mouth and sealed my fate.
“And the cats are on their own. They’ll figure it out.”
Now, before you start mailing me hate letters written in Friskies gravy, I have valid reasons:
1. Cats don’t follow commands. You can call their names all you want. The house could be on fire, and Mr. Whiskers is going to sit on the windowsill licking his ass like he’s got all the time in the world. You don’t “rescue” a cat—you submit a missing person report and hope they file it themselves.
2. Respect the athlete. Cats can literally launch themselves 10 to 12 feet straight up. For scale, that’s like if I could jump from my living room floor onto the roof, grab a beer off the chimney, and land back on the couch without spilling it. Horizontally? They can clear distances that would get them tested for PED’s. We’re talking video game physics here—Super Mario with cheat codes. And I’m supposed to disrespect that level of God-given athletecism by cramming them into a Petco starter pack carrier? Please. That’s not rescue—that’s an insult to the apex predator who can scale trees like Spider-Man on Red Bull.
And here’s how I picture it:
Then he walks off mid-question to go chase a moth. Behind him, other cats are casually sunbathing on toppled cars while the humans are crying into empty pet carriers. That’s the vibe.
Kate wasn’t buying my airtight, 100% logical argument. She made it very clear that if a tornado ever yeets us into Oz, we’re bringing the cats—no negotiations. So if you ever find our bodies in a ditch somewhere, clutching empty cat carriers, just know we went out doing what we love: arguing over stupid shit while our cats survived the disaster, probably thriving, and started a new civilization in the rubble.
And because cats are petty like that, I fully expect they’ll be the ones narrating the next documentary you watch. Black screen, dramatic music, and then the Discovery Channel-style voiceover kicks in:
“Here we see the human, a nervous, less agile species, ill-equipped for sudden changes in environment. Despite opposable thumbs, they often fail to use them productively, choosing instead to clutch nylon carriers and scream names like ‘Mittens’ into the void. Their diet of gas station snacks and panic proves unsustainable in harsh conditions. Meanwhile, the superior feline demonstrates resourcefulness—constructing shelters from debris, establishing dominance over local wildlife, and somehow still demanding their breakfast at precisely 6 a.m.”
By the end, they’ll have us looking like the weak link in the food chain—because let’s be real: if there’s ever a post-apocalyptic wasteland, cats won’t just survive—they’ll run it. Humans will be the cautionary tale narrated between commercial breaks.
And then—just when Kate was about to cry herself to sleep—the show pulled a Marvel move. Post-credits stinger. Black screen. Two seconds of silence. Then, boom: “Update—cat found alive.” No context. No explanation. Just that. Like the feline version of Nick Fury walking out of the shadows to say, “I’m putting together a team.”
Of course it lived. Because if the world ever truly ends, cats won’t just make it out alive—they’ll be the ones selling the documentary rights.
-The Gun Loving Hippie Dad … Who Fixes Stuff
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