The Great Cat Detective: Detective Fuzzy Bottoms is on the Case

The Real Life Detective Fuzzy Bottoms

So, one of my best friends has a cat named Gato. Gato is a very inquisitive cat and likes to crawl into things and investigate things, so my friend and her boyfriend have a long standing joke that he's a detective. They call him Detective Fuzzy Bottoms, which I think is absolutely adorable. Anyway, I'm constantly getting snaps of Gato sitting in suitcases and crawling into bags with the caption "Detective Fuzzy Bottoms is on the case." I don't know about you, but I sleep much better at night knowing that Fuzzy Bottoms is out there making sure that all the empty shopping bags in the world are safe.

Gato is such a prolific and talented detective that I thought someone ought to write a detective story about him, and that someone might as well be me. I give you "The Adventures of Detective Fuzzy Bottoms: Gato and the Mysterious Box."

***

I didn't want to be a detective. Ever since I was a young kitten, all I've ever wanted to be is a poet. My great-great-grandfather, Fernando Alejandro de los Montes, was one of the most celebrated cat poets of the century. Perhaps you've heard of him? He wrote the famous poem "My Love for You Is Like Eating A Mouse." I'm moved to tears every time I hear it recited (metaphorical tears of course; I don't have the physiological capability to produce tears). However, my mother wanted me to be a detective so that I could join the union and have a good dental plan.

My first posting as a detective is in the den of two humans. It's difficult to get used to humans. They're very silly creatures. They do strange things like wrap themselves in funny soft shells that are like fur but aren't fur and stand under streams of water until they almost drown themselves. They don't even know how to use litter boxes properly!

As soon as I got there, I realized that they needed a detective desperately. There were all sorts of strange things happening in their den, and they never thought twice about it! There's a monster that comes out about once a week and chews on all the carpet in the den while making a horrific sound! I am obliged to hide when this monster emerges. I did eventually manage to defeat it, but that's a story for another time.

Shortly after arriving in the den, I discovered a mysterious, flat box that produced light and sound. My humans stared at this box for hours on end as if it was made of catnip! I simply couldn't understand it. Finally, I decided that I had to investigate; if I didn't look into the matter, who would? I strode up to the box and was horrified to discover that hundreds of tiny humans were running around inside the box. They were making all sorts of loud and horrible noises, and I saw immediately that they were trapped. Obviously, my silly humans were trying to figure out how to rescue the tiny humans, but, bless their silly human hearts, they simply couldn't figure out how to do it.

As my great-great-grandfather wrote in his poem "Humans are Foolish Creatures, but Not as Silly as Dogs," "humans are silly, but not as silly as dogs/ they do not know when something is wrong/ instead, they prefer to stare at walls/as if they were frogs." That poem also moves me to tears.
Remembering my grandfather's advice, I jumped up on the table the box was sitting on and began to investigate. The sounds of the tiny humans were even more horrifying close up; I knew they must be suffering a fate worse than bath time.

I hadn't been investigating long when one of my humans jumped up and grabbed me around the middle. "Gato no!" She cried, obviously afraid that I was planning to harm the tiny humans (as I've said, humans are silly and do not understand the way the world works; I am a hard-boiled-detective-who-doesn't-play-by-the-rules, so I know how the world works).  I don't like being picked up; I feel it's degrading to my position as a detective, a detective that graduated summa cum laude from the University of the Royal Meow with a degree in detecting and a minor in meowing no less. However, I put up with being picked up because humans are silly, and one has to humor them.

My great-great-grandfather once wrote a poem about being picked up. It's called "I Don't Like Being Picked Up, But Humans are Silly, and We Have to Humor Them." I find its sagacious stanzas to be a beacon of hope in troubled times.

Seeing that I wouldn't be able to free the tiny humans immediately, I decided to go and lick myself and confer with my partner detective, Xavi.

Xavi is not a very good detective. He did not attend any sort of university. He says he went to the School of Hard Knocks,  but I don't think that that's an accredited university. He also knows hardly any poetry.

Xavi was not very concerned about the humans in the box. "So what," he said, "humans are silly; maybe they like living in a box."

I frowned at him. "They're only humans, but we have to protect them! They're too foolish to take care of themselves."

"Not as foolish as dogs though," said Xavi (I said he knows hardly any poetry, not no poetry).

"No," I agreed, "not as foolish as dogs."

The next days the humans left the den to do errands for Xavi and I. We send them out every day to buy us food, treats, and cat nip. Sometimes, they forget to do this and come home with human food or no food at all, but we forgive them.

My great-great-grandfather wrote a poem called "You Must Forgive Humans, They Know Not What They Do." It speaks to me on a deep level.

While they were out of the den, Xavi and I formed a plan of attack. We decided that the first thing to do was to push the box off the table. Once it was on the ground, we could scratch at until we got the tiny people out. It was very east to knock the box down because Xavi is a very portly cat and likes to bulldoze things. There was, however, a strange black rope tying the box to the wall. The box wouldn't fall to the ground completely until the black rope had been cut. Fortunately, this wasn't a problem for long. The box was so heavy that the black rope broke free, and the entire box fell to the floor of the den with a crash.

The box was broken, yet, strangely, no tiny people came crawling out. There were only tiny pieces of wire and metal. Xavi tried to eat some of these things, but said that they didn't taste good. I was deeply saddened. It was clear to me that we hadn't arrived in time to save the tiny humans, and they had all perished inside the box. It was one of the saddest moments of my career.

It reminded me of my great-great-grandfather's poem "When You Are Facing the Saddest Moment of Your Career, Think of Catnip."

I thought of catnip and felt much better. That is, until my humans returned to the den. They had forgotten the food of course, but I didn't get a chance to scold them about that because they noticed the box right away.

"Oh my god, look what they did to the TV!" One of my humans shouted.

She batted me on the head with her hand. I was stunned. How could they punish me for trying to save the tiny humans? They hadn't even made an effort. I saw that they were upset that the tiny humans hadn't made it, but that wasn't my fault was it?

As Xavi often says, "it's no use trying to understand humans."

My great-great-grandfather said something similar in his most famous poem "It's No Use Trying to Understand Humans."

I decided to take his advice. I walked away from my human, ate some dry food (alas, very un-savory; I prefer chili), and took a nap. A good detective is entitled to all these things.

***

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed Gato's first mystery story. I feel like Gato is as mysterious as the meat that Taco Bell tries to call beef, so I'm sure I'll be writing more Detective Fuzzy Bottoms mysteries. In the meantime, I'm going to go watch some tiny people hop around inside a glowing box.

Just sayin'