The Cat is a Hat!

Just at the edge of my peripheral vision, I catch a glimpse of the cat, sitting on the kitchen table, and, for the fourth time today, subsequently realise that it is you faux-fur hat.

The disguise is pretty impressive.

I think I may write an entire book about it: ‘The Cat is a Hat’.

Not a Dr Seuss homage, though.

I glance at the table and think, ‘What is that?’

And I say to myself that it’s Cato the cat.

But, no! I am wrong, for the cat is a hat.

The hat is a copycat cat, is the hat!

The hat is a cat? How truly bizarre!

De blah, diddi blah, diddi blah, diddi blah…

No. Definitely not.

Instead: an entire novel set around the existential crisis experienced by a cat, which reaches its climax as the cat discovers, through a chance DNA test taken as a result of being framed for a crime, that it is, in fact, a hat. (Possible plot hole: do faux-fur hats have DNA?)

Hat realises it no longer has to conform to notions of the feline stereotype – chasing birds; constantly asking to be let into a room only to walk away with a supercilious look on its face; exhibiting a narcissistic superiority complex every time dogs are mentioned; being a psychopath, etc. – and can, instead, search for its authentic self, which it does through some intense but revealing sessions with a hat psychotherapist.

Of course (of course), the final twist in the novel is that no-longer-cat-but-hat discovers that it is not a faux-fur hat after all, but an actual fur hat made from fur (I may need to research this. What are fur hats actually made from? Apart from fur, obviously – but from which animal? Not cats, surely? Then the novel would have to be called ‘The Cat is a Hat but it Had Been a Cat’, and even Dr Seuss never went that far. Also – how does Hat discover that it is it a real fur hat? Was the lab technician a secret gambler who falsified DNA results in exchange for money to pay off his debts? How does that work? Or was he simply incompetent? And how does that come to light? God, novels are so complicated; no wonder I stick to poems).

Anyway, like most novels, it won’t get written, so no need to worry about plot-holes, troublesome denouements and twists and whatnot.

And let’s not forget the time I thought that the cat was a hat (possible sequel?).

Or the other time, when I thought that the hat was a hat (which, if I’m honest, is most occasions, and doesn’t really lend itself to as many plots).

Trailer for the film version of the novel.