SPEAKER_02 0:01

Welcome back to this week's episode of Two Brains, One Body.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Okay, girl. I'm gonna drink some wine and then maybe be able to not try it.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Uh-oh. Y'all ready for this? Okay. Well, I'm here to talk to you about something that I really love. And if this could just be like an episode one of a series, because I don't really like go super into it, but it's about cats.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Like the Broadway musical. No.

SPEAKER_02 0:33

Okay. Cat head over here. No. Lions, cats. I know I love cats. I'm a cat person. You're a dog person. That's not what this episode is about. Maybe in the future we can argue. But no, I just want to just want to tell you about cats. Okay. Because I'm slowly trying to get Ashley over onto the cat side. I've got her children. Yeah. She's got my children on the cat side.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

I actually have something to tell you.

SPEAKER_02 1:00

Oh, do you want to tell me now or do you want to wait?

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Do I want to get a cat? No. Oh. But my husband's uh good friend, well friend, someone he had gone hunting with for a long, long time had just passed away. And he had cats, and he came home and he was like, should we bring home a cat? And I was like, oh, but these do not have another thing to take care of. You don't even have to do hardly anything. Well, is it are cats in the same way that dogs are in that you can't teach an old cat new tricks? Because these cats are like fully grown mature adult cats. You can't teach cats anything. Good to know. That's not true. I saw TikToks the other day, probably AI, now that I'm gonna say this out loud in my in my mouth. Now that I'm gonna mouth down the mouth.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

Somebody turn their cat to pee in the toilet. You can do that. I think that but that like that's early on. No, you you don't control cats. Cats are violent. Cats are we're living on the cat's life. Okay. Dogs live for their owners, and owners live for their cats. See that's uh yeah. I think I am a cat, which is why I can't have. I almost titled this episode like Should We Be Cats? Yeah, but I didn't.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:24

This episode actually doesn't even have a title yet. That's a that's a later baby.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

According to our audio file, it's cats plus one. Cats episode one.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

No, whatever. That's funny. Okay, let's talk about cats. Okay, so as you know, I wasn't always a cat person, right? Yep. Um, I grew up with like mostly having dogs, but like I grew up in the country-ish area, and so we always just had um like stray cats, and stray cats are always having kittens and stuff, so there was always like kittens in the barn, and we love that. Like, and so there are like older pictures of me and like my siblings where we have like kittens and stuff, and I remember that I remember loving that, but then as I got older, I was just I don't know, I'm just not much of an animal person.

SPEAKER_03 3:11

Right.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

Um, but yeah, so we always had dogs. Um, and then in my adult life, we've had one dog um that we no longer have anymore. But against all my better judgment, I let the persistence of my sweet daughter talk me into a cat. Okay. The persistence of my sweet daughter and a coworker that told me everything would be fine, and she found me this beautiful barn cat because I said I can't have a cat because I am allergic. And so I said, I need an outdoor cat. I grew up around outdoor cats, outdoor cats are awesome. And so our our my wonderful coworker found me a barn cat. And anyways, we get the cat, and then I think the cat only really stayed outside for like a couple weeks before I was like, bring that baby inside. Bring that baby inside. So we brought the the baby kitty inside, and then so now I have an out an indoor outdoor cat, which is the best of all the worlds, okay, kind of, and and then we got a second cat. And I would love a third.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Dang, are you planning for a third? No, I don't know. Are you expecting a third?

SPEAKER_02 4:25

I'm not expecting. This is not what this podcast is about. But I will say I was pleasantly surprised at this cat and how cute they are, and just how like low maintenance they are. So growing up, like again, we there was cats outside, but we never had indoor cats. So I didn't know anything about that. Like we never had litter boxes or anything like that. Um, but nowadays we don't even need a litter box because our cats are indoor-outdoor, and where they go to the bathroom is none of my business.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

I have no idea. I'm sure your neighbors love that. I do.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

Well, that's the thing. It's like, have you ever I don't even know what cat poop looks like because I mean I do know, but like I've never found it in the wild. I think they bury it. Yeah, they probably bury it. So we have like an in-ground trampoline, so there's a good chance that they're like using under the trampoline as their litter box, but I don't know. Fair enough. Anyways, that's my history of how I had a cat. All right. And how I love a cat. I love it. Okay. Um I love cats. I love cats, everything about cats. I just want to hug all the cats. No, but cats are so interesting, don't you think? Yeah. Sure. I'm gonna tell you about it.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

I mean, they definitely are they are interesting interesting. I don't know how to say it, but like they have like instincts.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

Well, but like going from a dog that a dog just wants to do everything to please you and they want to be with you, and cats like you can just call their names constantly and they just walk right by you like you're nothing. And it just, I don't know, it just keeps like leading you on, I guess, to be like, just love me, kitty. So you're the dog. Yeah, I'm basically the dog in the relationship. But cats act like independent contractors who live in your house and they're affectionate on their terms. Yeah. Umly their terms, they're absolutely unavailable whenever you want them. Um and they are they've somehow convinced us that they're in charge. Because they are so they are in charge. It's totally fine. They didn't adapt to us, they just decided we were useful, yeah, and they live with us. So um, and something very interesting about cats is that they've generally just stayed the same over time. Really? Like they don't adapt, like they don't uh I'm sure they evolve in some ways, but like they're the same. Cats are the same. Oh you can't say the same for dogs, okay. Um, but cats just kind of stay the same. So, did you know that cats domestic domesticated themselves?

SPEAKER_00 6:54

No, I didn't. They did.

SPEAKER_02 6:55

Yep, cats showed up, they killed a mouse, and then they're like, well, this kind of works, so yeah, I'll just stick around.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

Yeah, so let's go over like a little brief history about cats.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

So around 10,000 years ago, cats came into the pest control game um in agricultural communities in West Asia, and there's evidence of like a 9,500-year-old human cat buried in Cyprus.

SPEAKER_03 7:20

Whoa.

SPEAKER_02 7:21

Yeah, so cats, cats have been around. So they were, you know, feral out on their own, and then one day they kind of came around, they killed some mice, and then they're like, I think we're just gonna stick around.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

What are you guys up to?

SPEAKER_02 7:33

Okay, but then they took the most logical step after like becoming the pest control. Okay, they became gods. Fair enough. So around 3,600 years ago, we're in ancient Egypt. It's commonly thought that cats were worshipped because they are associated with deities and often like mummified. We found them mummified with their um owner when they pass. Um, but it's actually in looking into this, because I always thought that too, like cats were gods.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

Right.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

Not really. Oh. Um Egyptians didn't necessarily worship animals themselves, they worship gods, and those gods were sometimes represented as animals, including cats. So, for example, the goddess Bestet um was an ancient Egyptian goddess of home, uh domesticity, fertility, protection, and cats, and was often as um depicted as a cat because cats embodied those same traits. So that's kind of maybe where people are like, oh, the Egyptians worship cats, but not necessarily.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

So I've a maybe you don't know this, but I have a question like was that because they could they would see cats have like litters of kittens? Probably and like dogs weren't a thing, like because dogs were mostly wolves, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:55

Yeah, dogs came from wolves, and then we have like aggressively bred them to be what we want them to be, which is why they're more genetically um flexible, right? Okay, not cats. Cats, Egyptian cats are just the same cats that we have now.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

Whoa, yeah, that's cool. Um probably because you can't breed a cat.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

I think you actually very much can. But we'll talk about it. Oh no, oh no, oh no, but cats still held like a special place in society in Egypt. Um, they were respected, again, sometimes mummified, they were linked to religion, but not literally worshipped the way we often think about it in our minds. Like they were just kind of associated with it. They were they were also known for, you know, all those things that I said, like fertility protection at home. But in thinking about the cats of today, so like think of the cats of today. Okay. Are we just projecting a little bit by like looking back in time and being like, oh, the Egyptians worshiped cats? Like, think about like in the future when people look back on us today and they're gonna be like, they had cat trees, they had endless toys, yeah. They made them their own little homes, a catio, if you will. Have you ever seen those katios?

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Yeah, they're cool.

SPEAKER_02 10:20

Um, are people in the future also gonna be like, yeah, these guys worship cats and all the videos, the endless stream of videos of cats literally doing nothing and us being like, uh, this is the most amazing video I've ever seen.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Look how cute. It doesn't even look at this cat walk by me and not even acknowledge me. I love it so much.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

So again, yeah, we are we are also still worshiping cats.

SPEAKER_02 10:49

Are is our future generations gonna be like our parents? Our the cats were gods to our parents.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

Maybe.

SPEAKER_02 10:57

And it might be true.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

Not my kids.

SPEAKER_02 11:00

Yet.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

Yet but anyway, I will say I don't have a thing against cats. I just like I had a cat growing up. I just we just don't have one. We have two dogs. I don't need another thing. You're just in the thick of it, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

Like we got cats after I was done wiping butts. Yeah, no. So and you're still wiping butts. I'm still wiping butts. Um but yeah. So the Egyptians they didn't worship them, they just really loved their their pets. Cool. Okay, moving on from ancient Egypt. Let's talk about 31 BC. Cats go on a European vacation. Woo-hoo! The cats are taken to Europe. Um the cats were introduced to Roman life and spread across Europe by traitors. But this is where it takes a turn. Uh oh, is it Napoleon? But they got persecuted. What? In the Middle Ages. Oh, witches. Witches. Yep. Um but we'll talk about that later too.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 11:56

And then after that, the cats traveled on ships to prevent rodents from consuming supplies. Because again, the cats are super useful. They take care of the the pesky, the pesky rodents that we don't like. Um, but but bringing them on ships that helped them to spread to America.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02 12:13

Old old CC brought them over to the American trash, trash. Um, which leads to today where the modern era where cats are beloved housemates who don't contribute at all financially. Yeah, correct. Um I think one time I like messaged into our like work chat and I was like, imagine having a roommate that doesn't pay rent, stays out all night, sleeps all day, eats all the food, pukes wherever they want. That's my cat.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

And brings in dead animals from time to time.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

Brings in brings in Rifraff. That's my cat.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

Anyway, so are you trying to convince me to get a cat? Because that's not gonna convince me to get a cat.

SPEAKER_02 12:55

No, I'm not con I'm not trying to convince you of anything. Okay. I'm just talking about cats. All right. I love cats.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

I love every kind of cat.

SPEAKER_02 13:02

Yeah. Um, so again, cats were self-domesticated because of course they are. They do what they do what they want. And they don't give a damn. Um cats are very versatile, they can adapt easily between quote, domesticated and feral lifestyles. Quote. That's what the internet said. Okay. Domesticated and feral lifestyles. They can swim back and forth. Which who can do that? And they do. Like my indoor-outdoor cats, they come in, they're little gentlemen. Oh, and then they stay out all night doing who knows what. Fighting, fighting, fighting, doing stuff. Um, and the one very interesting or another very interesting thing about cats is they, like I said, they've kind of just stayed the same, even genetically, like because they're not getting bred, they're not as flexible. Um, and like when you think about dogs, you can have any type of dog you want, any shape, any size, any color, any any style of poo. Any style. A Yorkie poo, a bully poo, uh my my personal favorite, a bitchy poo.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

Oh, a bitchy poo.

SPEAKER_02 14:08

Yeah, Bishon poodle.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Um, what about a shitty poo?

SPEAKER_02 14:12

You can have a shitty poo. All the poos. And in fact, my parents have uh, I think it's a Bishon uh Cavalier poodle. It's just a little tiny dog. And I very lovingly refer to her as my sister. Oh so I'll tell my kids like, say hello to your aunt, Sophie. And they're like, What? I'm like, Yes, Sophie is my sister.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

I love it. Sophie's cute. That's funny though, because I have I have a great day in Kelpie mix, and then I have a Sharpe Shepherd mix. So yeah, I mean anything. You can literally anything.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

Yeah, you can breed a dog with a hot dog. Yeah, for all I know. And then go on a hot dog walk. Hot dog walk, that's where they came from. But dog breeding is essentially a build-a-bear workshop, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Not cats. Cats are the pre-made stuffy on the shelf.

SPEAKER_02 15:05

Yeah. I remember one time, so we had a we used to have a um, oh my gosh, a golden doodle.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

We we fell into the golden doodle era. Right. Um, and for whatever reason, we were like, yeah, we can breed this dog. He was cute. He was super cute. His name was Teddy. He was very cute. Um, but I remember, and so we did it one time, like we like studded him out, which was very uncomfortable. Um would you say the juice wasn't worth the squeeze?

SPEAKER_01 15:33

The juice was not worth the squeeze.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

I did not the well, the first time it was fine because um another like golden doodle reached out to us and they were like the same size. But I remember the second time somebody reached out to us and they brought over this tiny, tiny dog. And we were like, absolutely not, we're not doing this. Like, and I think I was like leaving at the time, and I like I remember looking over at my husband and being like, Good luck. But I think they nothing happened, but it was very uncomfortable. So we closed down that build-a-bear workshop. Yeah, good, good call. Yeah. Um, but I looked it up because I was like, why is that? And it and again, it's just because over time humans have um bred dogs to be what they want them to be. They've bred them aggressively, um for specific purposes. They were from wolves and now they're just pliable. They're genetically pliable. Cats, on the other hand, no. Like early on, I remember when we had our kittens and they were so small and so cute. I was like, oh, there's gotta be like a tiny cat breed. Like, you know, there's a tiny dog breed. There's no tiny cat breeds, or there might be like one, but they're not like prevalent at all. Interesting. Yeah, but um, but yeah, they don't so um and then I also learned that indoor cat only is a very recent thing, like in the last 60 to 70 years. Like cats have always been outdoor or a mix of outdoor indoor. Oh. But keeping your cat inside is actually a very modern thing. And I mean it makes sense because they're your little babies. Yeah. But you don't want them to get hurt. But that's a newer thing. Um but they're also cats, like they're hunters. They're hunters, they like to get their own food. It's like their instincts, yeah. Um, but with the invention of refrigeration for like food purposes and cat litter and the prevalence of like spaying and neutering dogs, um, or cats and dogs, I guess I should say. That's caught kept a lot of cats just being able to be indoors only. Because and I was like, what do you mean that the prevalence of spaying and neutering has made it so you can have indoor only? Well, it makes it so that you don't have to have a messy situation in your house when they are in heat. Yeah, yeah. So, anyways, and then did you know that cats, just like us, require a high protein diet? Oh we don't require a high protein diet, we choose a high protein diet, but yeah, cats require it.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

I mean, that makes sense. Yeah. So is there somebody taste testing their food?

SPEAKER_02 18:12

Yeah, because if there's somebody taste test taste testing dog food, I'm sure somebody's doing it for cat food and probably bird seed.

unknown 18:18

Bird seed.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

Someone's just like yeah, I love it. I love it. Okay, so let's talk about the dark side of cats. So in the 12th century, Pope Gregory the Ninth was tired of all that cat worship. Okay, he was a dog guy.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 18:34

I don't know if he was, I made that up. But he was tired of it, and so uh about that time he discovered, they discovered, uh Romans discovered, I guess I should say, that um there was a cult that was worshiping cats as a devil figure.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Oh, geez.

SPEAKER_02 18:51

Okay, the devil was taking the shape of black cats, the devil could switch into cat mode and then into devil mode. Yeah, as as one does. Do it, lady. And so he was like, listen, we don't worship cats anymore. Not that they were worshiping cats again, because who knows? They just like their cats. Right. Um we must get rid of them, which is also a controversial thing. Like it was it's been known, not known, it's been assumed that Pope Gregory the Ninth uh put out like mass extermination orders for cats, but that's not the case at all. That didn't happen, so um but this like anti-cat movement, so people were just maybe not as friendly towards cats, was continued for about 200 years, so they weren't 200 years old. Yeah, they weren't being nice about the kitties. Whoa, dude. Which led to the time of the Black Death. Yep. So that was like 1347 to 1351, it killed 40 to 60 percent of the European population. So I think I think I read it was like 25 million people. That's karma coming back around for you. But it was caused by our friend Yersinia pestis, a bacteria carried by fleas on rats. So if we are not being nice to our cats and we're not letting our cats come around, we're not feeding our cats, guess what is spreading like a wildfire. The plague. The plague. So initially, cats though were blamed for the spread of the plague because again, like we didn't like the cats. We're trying to, you know, make them the culprit for everything and demonize those cats, but in fact, it was the fleas on rats. So without keeping cats, the rat population went crazy. That's wild in the disease spread.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

I didn't realize that the that was the precursor. I mean, I'm sure there was other people. Oh, there's a lot of two, but like that was one of the precursors of like a reduced. It just didn't help the situation. Yeah, yeah. Um which you probably were assumed to be a witch because if you kept cats around and you didn't get the plague, yeah, they were like well that that was exactly that was exactly it.

SPEAKER_02 20:57

Is like, yeah, how come you're not getting the plague? Oh, it's because you have the devil.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

You've got the devil.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

Okay, moving on, some interesting cat science.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

Cat science. We need a cool like cat science.

SPEAKER_02 21:12

Yeah. Um, so as you know, there's like uh do you remember like learning about cat scratch fever? Yes. When you get yeah, yeah, when you get like scratched by them. But it is also just like the bacteria in cat saliva, and it's so strong, it's so infectious that every bite, like a bad bite. I'm not talking just like their little love bites, because in the morning time, like our cats will come in and they kind of like I don't know what it's called when they like rub on your legs and pretend like they like you because they're hungry. But if you don't act with earnest in like heading towards the door or whatever, they'll start like nipping at you. But it's just like little nips. But like a legit cat bite, it's like a flip of the coin of whether it could be like a septic situation. Yeah. Yeah. So take it serious, folks. Yeah, if you get if you get you're not gonna get rabies, but you could get some sepsis.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

Yeah. So um scratch Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

When walking, like everybody knows cats are super graceful. Right. Um their back paw will land exactly where their front paw was. So when if you see that, like if you see their tracks like in the snow or I don't know if it's like wet outside or something, yeah, it'll just be two prints, not four. That is cool. Yeah, and it's probably like a survival thing because it's avoid it is to avoid leaving a trail.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

That is really cool.

SPEAKER_02 22:37

Yeah, it is cool. Have you heard of the primordial pouch? No. So the primordial pouch is like this big belly droop that swings when they walk. If you've ever seen a cat walking, it looks like their stomach is just it's like this I don't know, it's squishy. We've like touched our cats like primordial pouches. Like, so we have two cats, and one is a very active boy, and he is pretty lean. And then we have our timid boy that is like he's a little more squishy. Yeah, he's a little flappy. He's not fat, but he's a little bit squishy. Yeah, but he has a big pouch, and I remember, and that was the first time we'd ever seen or even heard of a primordial pouch. And I remember texting my friend that we got the cat from, and I was like, something's wrong with him. He has a large mass in his stomach, and she's like, Oh, it's the pouch, but it just protects their organs. I don't think it in a fight. I think it's I would offer to show you my cat's primordial pouch, but he is hidden. You're here, and he wants nothing to do with strangers. You don't even know that we have one.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

I would like to politely decline filling your cat's pouch. But don't knock it till you try it. Thanks for the offer. I'm gonna I'm gonna unsubscribe from now.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

Well, just like Google primordial pouch, because they're cute. I probably won't. But once you know it exists, then when you see cats walking, you see like their tummy swinging from side to side, it's the pouch.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

I just assumed it was because of their gait. Like oh, I don't know. Because they also don't have yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 24:12

Uh they also don't have collarbones, which is it's so their like arms and legs like come straight down from their spinal column, which is also why they can um they can fit anywhere that their head can fit. So anywhere that like their head can fit. So if you're building like a fence or something, if they can fit through a little crack in that with their head, they're they're gonna get their whole body out because they don't have to be like yeah, so they can just like cool.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

Yeah, that's probably by design though, right? Because m mice can do the same thing. Probably mice can like wow smart. You're connecting the dots. I know that's what I do for that.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

I love it. Okay, cats can cats have impeccable hearing and they can rotate their ears independently on their head. So if you watch ever watch a cat, like sometimes they'll like adjust their ears, they have like 30 ear muscles that help them do that, and they can rotate their ears like up to 180 degrees so that they can pinpoint a sound, which is why they're great hunters too, because they can hear all those teeny like rodent sounds that we can't hear with our yucky, our stupid human ears. Yucky. I don't want to hear that. Um that's degusting. They also have great sense of smell, and they even have a second nose per se, and it's behind their teeth. What? Yeah, so I'm I'm sure it's not like a literal like noggin in their mouth. I didn't look up what it looks like, but they have like show me your nose mouth. Show me your mouth notes. You can't ask me that. But it's used to pick up this second nose or whatever it's called, is used to pick up other cats' odors. So I don't know if I've ever recognized it in our cats, but like I was reading online that some people will see their cat. Um, and to use that mouth, they'll they have to pull their top lip up and expose their top teeth. So it almost kind of looks like they're getting aggressive or like growling or something, but they're just like getting the scent of another cat. Weird. Yeah, they just sniff in though. You have to watch YouTube to see what I just did.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

That's like when you make a funny joke and I'm like, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:23

I'm like, I don't think she likes that joke. Are you sniffing me with your second no?

unknown 26:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

Speaking of laughing when it's not funny, have you seen those TikToks lately of like my coworker telling the same joke always? And like it shows the coworker like laughing towards them and they're like bouncing their shoulders and then they turn around and they're just going like this. Never seen that? Uh-uh.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

You probably get those because of me.

SPEAKER_02 26:49

But it's just so funny they like turn around and then their face just dies, but they're still like bouncing their shoulders like they're laughing. Oh, it's so funny. All right, I'll find it and you can post it. Dill. Because you post it on our page. I don't even know how.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

Yes, you do. I probably could figure it out. You could figure it out.

SPEAKER_02 27:05

I'm just not logged in.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

No. We have to associate you with it.

SPEAKER_02 27:10

Oh, that sounds like a lot of work. I'll just have you do it. Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Thanks. I love that for me. I'm the dog in this situation. You are the dog. And I'm the cat. Am I?

SPEAKER_02 27:20

And I oftentimes just walk by you and you're like, Christy.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

And I'm like, Christy, be my friend.

SPEAKER_02 27:27

I'm gonna go to bed.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

Just gonna have any snacks?

SPEAKER_02 27:29

And then I do have snacks. Which I got. I gave Ashley a little treat before the pod today, and she's like, these and what are they? The skinny dips.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

The skinny dipped dark chocolate peanut butter cups.

SPEAKER_02 27:41

Yeah, she's like, these taste funny. And I said, Yeah, yeah, because I bought those a long time ago and I forgot where I hid them and I found them just recently.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

They're my favorite. I have a whole bag that I have at home and I go through them a lot. So I have a very keen sense of what they're supposed to taste like. They're supposed to taste like. I'm a connoisseur, if you will. You're like, these aren't supposed to have dust all over them. But have you, speaking of dust, have you had the skinny dipped almonds that are dark chocolate covered or like sometimes milk chocolate or white chocolate? And they are dusted with like there's dark chocolate ones that are dusted with peanut butter powder, which are really good. No, or they have the white chocolate ones that are dusted with like a lemon type of whatever. It's really, really tasty. Um I love me some skinny dipped stuff.

SPEAKER_02 28:30

So it it tastes delicious. So you'll just have to provide me some.

SPEAKER_00 28:35

I will. I really that was my after gym snack for a while there. And you put them in the freezer and they're nice and like cold.

SPEAKER_02 28:40

Oh. Crunchy. Do you know what other healthy snack I like? The chocolate-covered gummy bears.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

Same. Something about that cinnamon, really.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

Not cinnamon, gummy. Did I say cinnamon bear? I meant gummy bear.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 28:52

Chocolate-covered gummy bears.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

Oh no, I draw the line at gummy bears. Why? I well, I also really don't love cinnamon bears either. The chocolate helps, but you know how I am. I don't like gummy things. Oh. Did do you not know this? I don't like jello, I don't like gummy type of things. I can like feel it going down. I don't like it. Oh.

SPEAKER_02 29:13

It's a texture thing. So when you say, grab me some treats from wherever, and I get you like fruity, gummy things, you're like, pass. Correct. Just chocolate.

SPEAKER_00 29:23

I mean, I look like a Starburst, but I don't like like jelly beans? Jelly beans are okay. I love jelly beans. I don't prefer them, but I'll eat them. But like I'm talking like the gummy rings, like peachos. Fruit snacks.

SPEAKER_02 29:38

You're not you're not taking your kids fruit snacks.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

I'm not a big fan of fruit snacks. I'll let my kids eat them, but I just don't enjoy them as much. Oh. And like And I prefer that over chocolate.

SPEAKER_02 29:48

Oh, really? Because I'm like a gummy, yeah, fruity. They're better on macros, but gummies are?

SPEAKER_00 29:54

Yeah. Oh. Like the gummy fruits and stuff. Or yeah. Like the trolley eggs and that kind of stuff. Oh. Gummy worms. But like even with licorice, like my husband really loves Twizzlers, and he'll like let me have some, but I'll have like a bite of his Twizzler. Like, I can't. I can't do it. Weird. I know. And Jell O shots don't even get me started about my inability to swallow jello.

SPEAKER_02 30:20

We're also old, we shouldn't be doing jello shots.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

My cousin's 21st birthday. We went to Vegas and you know, they had like the two dollar jello shots, and so all of us got one, and there's a video of it somewhere. We were all gonna do it together, and so we set up the video and like you know, to cheers her 21st birthday. And did you toss it over your shoulder? No, everybody was doing it, and I did it, and you could see it go in my mouth, and then immediately come back. Oh like I can't, I cannot swallow jello. Okay, that's a fun fact of it.

SPEAKER_02 30:50

Super brave of you to share that.

SPEAKER_00 30:52

I can't swallow.

SPEAKER_02 30:53

You're so brave. Jell-O. It's so gross. Okay, let's move on because this conversation's gross. Jiggles all the way down. All right. Another thing about cats, this isn't sciencey at all, but um I realized today when I was like or in the last week or whatever, like looking all this stuff up, like we don't really talk about them as far as their breeds are concerned. We're always just like, oh, it's a tabby, it's an orange tabby, it's a gray tabby, it's a tuxedo. So we just identify cats by their coat colors.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

Yeah. Like calico's are the uh the all the colors. Growing up, my like really good friend had a calico cat, and I swear to you, that was not like any cat I had ever known. It was magic, so social, and like I remember one time she was standing in her kitchen and it would like climb up her body and sit on her shoulder. Oh, that's so sweet. It was really cute. It was really cute. Cat. I think her name was Maisie. It was cute. Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_02 31:50

You do love cats.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

I like animals. I like cats. I don't like birds, I'll tell you that. I don't like birds either. I like to look at birds. I don't I would never want a pet bird. No. It also pet a bird. It seems cruel a little bit. Like keep a bird in a cage. Yeah, you know, like, oh, that thing can fly. Let's put it in a cage.

SPEAKER_02 32:14

Yeah. I used to have a coworker that loved birds. Um, I'm sure he still loves birds, but he would take it, he would take birds to Walmart and he had like a diaper for the bird, and it was like on like a little leash.

SPEAKER_00 32:29

Okay, that's a fun story. Thank you. You should tell that at parties.

SPEAKER_02 32:33

Is this not a party? Oh clearly we're partying. Okay, I want to tell you about my two cats, just because everybody loves their cats. Tell me about my cats in our neighborhood. I feel as if they are a bit notorious. Everybody knows our cats, their names are Ginger and Wasabi. Um, Ginger, it was our original cat, and he is an orange cat. And when we got him, we asked for an a female cat. Because I think because I didn't want to deal with like Tomcat energy, right? Because that's what I remember growing up is like the tomcat energy, like the cats that would pee on the porch and then like it would stink. I was like, I just want a girl cat. Um, and my daughter wanted an orange cat. And so my our coworker was like, Oh yeah, I have my neighbor has cats. There is a girl cat, a girl orange cat. And I remember hearing, or I remember telling a different coworker, like, yeah, I got this orange cat, and it's a girl, and and the coworker was like, Oh my gosh, orange cats are female orange cats are super rare because the orange gene is on the um X chromosome. So you'd have to have um Oh yeah, and obviously, yeah, yeah. Um, so both parents must be carriers of it for the cat to end up orange. So only like 20% of orange cats are female. Whoa. Anyways, so we get this cutest orange cat. We name her ginger, she's so cute, love, love ginger. We go out of town, maybe like two weeks later, and we had my sister-in-law babysit the cat because like we couldn't leave the cat.

SPEAKER_00 34:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:08

And she texted my husband and said, Your cat is so cute, and your cat is also very much a boy.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

I have bad news for you.

SPEAKER_02 34:18

And we were like, we were like, What? And mind you, I don't know anything about cats or cat anatomy, but like we had definitely noticed the balls, and we were just like, Maybe we don't know cat anatomy.

SPEAKER_00 34:31

We don't know.

SPEAKER_02 34:33

Those are some balls. So ginger, our girl cat, became ginger, our boy cat. Yeah, and everybody loves ginger, so yeah, and again, very well known around the neighborhood. He's super friendly, he goes everywhere. Um, he's been featured on Facebook a couple times of people being like, uh, this cat came in our house. Does anybody know whose cat this is? And you're just like, that's mine. And my sister will send me because I don't have Facebook, and so my sister will be like, Ginger's at somebody's house again. We're like, oopsie. But our cats do have collars, so they don't look unhoused. Yeah, they're they they're little gentlemen with their little bow tie collars, they're very cute. Cute. Okay, um, and then almost all ginger cats, speaking of gingy, oh that just went dim. That just went dim. Um, our lamp went dim. So almost all ginger cats have the distinct M on their head. Oh uh. And it's just like the coloring. So it's super cute. Gingy has that. And then ginger cats are thought to be more friendly and affectionate. And ginger is very affectionate and sweet, and he loves everybody. He loves almost to a fault, like to a point where he's gonna get himself in trouble because like he will chase the kid or he will follow the kids out to go to the bus. Or like he'll if we're walking somewhere, we have to be like, Oh, I guess the cat's coming on the walk with us. Right. Because he'll just follow everybody. So he's a dog. He's a dog. Ginger is the most dog cat that we've ever had. Like, if the kids are playing outside, he'll be like running around outside with them. I know.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

I remember the other day we had dinner and he he was playing fetch. Yeah, he was playing fetch with your girls.

SPEAKER_03 36:10

He's so cute.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

Core memory, by the way. I I have not stopped hearing about ginger.

SPEAKER_02 36:14

See, now your kids know about ginger, and they'll tell their friends about ginger. Okay, then my other cat on the flip side. So we had one cat and we were like, he needs a friend. Yeah. And we all just wanted another cat. And we heard that cats are just better in pairs. So we got a tuxedo cat from a different friend, and his name is Wasabi, and he is terrified of life. Oh no. He just, if the doorbell rings, he's under the bed. If the kids unlock the door because the door's kind of loud, he's under the bed. Like he does not come out. Most of our family has never even seen him. They know of him, and everybody knows of Jin or Wasabi.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:52

Um, but nobody has ever really seen him.

SPEAKER_00 36:55

I've seen him.

SPEAKER_02 36:56

Have you? Yeah. Oh, okay. He might you come around quite a bit now, so he might start coming around. But the richest cat in the world is known to be a tuxedo cat. The richest cat? Yeah, in 1998, a tuxedo cat named Sparky inherited $6.3 million when its owner passed away. I did not bother to look into what happened after that. I don't know if I don't know if Sparky was also like adopted by somebody else that then also got six point three million dollars. I would like to imagine that maybe Sparky donated that money to like a shelter or something. And then allegedly, also didn't care to fact check this, but allegedly there's only been one cat that's made it to the top of Mount Everest, and it was a tuxedo cat. Oh right. But I'm like, did it have its own little like cat uh oxygen tank? Because you need oxygen up at the top. Maybe cats don't. I don't know. Or whatever. Okay, so those are my two cats. Okay. My favorite my favorite famous cat, cat suit Mario.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

Catsuit Mario.

SPEAKER_02 37:56

Have you ever played Mario Super Mario TV World where he gets a cat suit? That's bomb.com.

SPEAKER_00 38:01

And you can like climb things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:03

But the interesting thing was when I was looking up pictures of it because I wanted to rem I haven't played that game in a bit, and so I wanted to remember it. All the other characters also can get cat suits, but their cat suits are their same like character color. But Mario's is yellow. He doesn't get a red cat suit, he gets a yellow cat suit.

SPEAKER_00 38:16

Yeah, I have I remember that from the I have it on our do you remember Wii Us?

SPEAKER_02 38:21

So hold on. Oh actually, while we were like just waiting around, I looked over 3D world.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

Mario Wii U. Yeah, we have that. Speaking of Wii U, have you played the uh the flashlight game on there? No, it's so fun. You are on the Switch? No, on the on the Wii U.

SPEAKER_02 38:45

Oh, we don't have a Wii U anymore. Oh. Which is why that's in a uh a to sell pile.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

Oh, okay, gotcha. Well, there was a game on there where somebody was um the ghost or like whatever in this haunted house, and then other people are Mario?

unknown 38:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:59

You're talking Mario Party. No, it was it was a game on Wii U. It's not it's not Mario. No, it's not Mario. But you're in a haunted house. Okay, you have a flashlight. Okay, everybody else has a flashlight, but the person who has the Wii U screen is the ghost. And you have to try to find them. Oh, so fun. Oh, it is really fun.

SPEAKER_02 39:18

Bring back Wii U. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 39:20

I love catsu Mario. Okay. Last little bit, not a game. We're just gonna talk about four common cat conspiracies. Okay. Conspiracies. Number one, because you know they're like people think all sorts of crap about cats. Yeah. And they're just lovable, not gonna show you affection for mates.

SPEAKER_00 39:40

So listen, my husband doesn't like cats because growing up he has cats. And he was a child and bring cats home. And so then they would have kittens because none of them were spade or new to her.

SPEAKER_02 39:56

He did it to himself. Yeah, he definitely did it to himself. Well, when you guys get cats later on, he can really love cats. Okay. Okay. Was there anything more to that story?

SPEAKER_00 40:05

No, just that, and that he really is a caring person. He's great.

unknown 40:11

He's great.

SPEAKER_02 40:12

You don't want to get cats right now because you have dogs. I don't want to get cats because they have dogs. When the sad day comes that the dogs pass on, you might want to get cat.

SPEAKER_00 40:20

Maybe they're easy. I just don't want another thing to take care of. Animals are basically outdoor, man.

SPEAKER_02 40:25

Indoor or outdoor children. The only the only stressful thing about indoor or outdoor is that we have to be worried about them going outside, which is why they have air techs. Oh, good. So we can see where those hoes go at night.

SPEAKER_00 40:35

Yeah, I want to know. I don't know. Baby Hoen right now.

SPEAKER_02 40:37

Baby Hoenn.

SPEAKER_00 40:38

Yeah. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:39

All right. Conspiracies. So some Reddit users, particularly fans of HP Lovecraft, um, speculate that cats are living avatars or fragments of the cosmic darkness that exists. So this theory suggests that cats can navigate the void, which explains why they stare into corners and jump between dimensions.

SPEAKER_00 40:57

I love it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:58

So sometimes they're just like literally just staring, and you're like, what do you see? And they don't tell you. They don't even care.

SPEAKER_00 41:05

They don't.

SPEAKER_02 41:06

They don't give a damn. Okay. Uh some users joke that cats are actually extraterrestrial species or agents of another force or darkness meant to monitor humans. A notion that blends with the cat-like creatures or catamounts theories found in various Reddit threads.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 41:24

I also think they could just be agents spying on us.

SPEAKER_00 41:27

Or have you heard the theory that this is the earth is actually a prison for souls and maybe they're just our guards?

SPEAKER_02 41:34

Or in the dark place?

SPEAKER_00 41:35

Yeah. Like we're like we did something on another planet. But like maybe I've never heard that theory.

SPEAKER_02 41:40

That's funny.

SPEAKER_00 41:41

Then the cats are just here to the cats are the guards. Oh.

unknown 41:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:46

I just made the cat part up, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:48

Oh, you just m- Oh my gosh. Like maybe they're the guards. That's how conspiracy theories get started. You're welcome. All right.

SPEAKER_00 41:54

Um there's We definitely need more of those.

unknown 41:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:57

There's a theory that the parasite Toxoplasmosus Gande, so it's the um, I think it that's the part that you need to be careful with when you're pregnant, is the toxoplasmosus. Um, is actually altering human behavior and personality on a mass scale to make humans more subservient to cats in a common, often exaggerated topic of debate.

SPEAKER_00 42:19

Interesting. I believe it. I really believe the first one, whatever you said. The the first one of them being like in-betweeners.

SPEAKER_02 42:26

Yeah, they can jump between.

SPEAKER_00 42:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:28

But it is interesting that they think this parasite is uh infecting us and just making us subservient to cats. Could be true. Probably. Like I do all sorts of like I cleaned up two piles of puke today.

SPEAKER_00 42:39

You just go clean yourself.

SPEAKER_02 42:44

Also, like when you think about it, like a cat never gets a bath in its entire life, it never gets a bath.

SPEAKER_00 42:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:52

We had to we did have to give our cat a bath one time.

SPEAKER_00 42:54

Did it get sprayed by a skunk?

SPEAKER_02 42:56

No, it got I think it got sprayed. I don't think it I know it got sprayed by like a tom cat. So when we took ginger to get um neutered, he apparently freaked out, jumped out of his carrier. Actually, didn't jump out of his carrier, ripped out of his carrier. He like whoa, he sliced it open and he somehow made it up into like the ceiling tiles and was in the ceiling of the little clinic. Oh my god. And they had to get him down, but he got apparently in his chaos, he got sprayed by like a tomcat. And my husband brought him home, and I was like, We're gonna have to get rid of the cat because like it made our whole house smell like tomcat. It was so bad.

SPEAKER_00 43:39

What uh what is the difference? Sorry, I don't know, but like what is a tomcat like what tomcats are like all I think all male cats are called tomcats.

SPEAKER_02 43:49

And do you know what female cats are called? Bitches. The little dogs. No, thank you, those are dogs. Queens, queens, yeah. All right, female cats are queens. Uh I don't know what makes like tomcats. Stink Let's her and Google it. Tomcats, which are unneutered males, smell due to high levels of testosterone and a specialized amino acid called phenoline in their urine, which breaks down the which breaks down into pungent sulfur containing compounds. Ew. This intense odor is used to mark territory and attract females through spraying. So girls are like, mmm. A behavior that releases scent compounds from their anal glands. Gross. Gross. That's gross. I guess uh my cats are neutered, so they don't have the Tomcat stuff. But it was so bad. Yeah, I bad when he got sprayed. Okay. Um, last one black cats are unlucky. So this comes from cats being cared for by single women, who were then accused of witchcraft, probably because again, they are not getting diseases because they take care of themselves. Yeah. Um, people believe that the cats were helping witches with their evil deeds. Um, and they also believe that black cats were witches in disguise.

SPEAKER_00 45:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:06

But in Japan, it's thought to be lucky if you cross paths with the black cat.

SPEAKER_00 45:10

Black cats are cool as hell. Yeah, they are cool. Yeah. I like it. I like a good black cat. Yeah. There's a thing about witches. Maybe I'll do an episode on witches because I think it's really fascinating. But um the witch trials were partly due to single women owning land.

SPEAKER_02 45:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:28

And they just had to and people wanting their land.

SPEAKER_02 45:32

So listen, when you do that episode, yes, you need to do some research. Okay. And one point of research can be the Simpsons episode. I think it's a Treehouse of Horror episode about the witch trials. And Marge is a witch. And it's funny as heck. Okay. As heck. As H E double hockey stick. Funny as hell. Let's go get a dirty. Oh my gosh. No. But speaking of Simpsons, because again, my child is watching all the Simpsons right now. There was, and I haven't watched all the new seasons, but there is a new season that has an episode that's like um probably loosely based off a white lotus. It was called I think it was called Yellow Lotus or something. Oh my gosh. He was watching it last night and I was like, oh my gosh, I need to watch that. But nice. Anyways. Okay, that's about cats. I'll probably do maybe someday I'll do another episode about cats. Because I was just kind of like the basics about cats. Let's talk about cats. Let's talk about the history of cats.

SPEAKER_00 46:29

I learned things.

SPEAKER_02 46:30

Do you want a cat?

SPEAKER_00 46:32

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 46:33

Indifferent.

SPEAKER_00 46:34

Indifferent. Yeah. I I like animals. I just I don't know. It's just from now that I'm a mom, it's another thing to take care of. Yeah. Like it's just another thing on like another task on my list. And the main reason why we can't get cats, this is gonna be a very degusting story. Are you ready for this?

SPEAKER_02 46:53

I know. I've already heard this story, but please tell our listeners.

SPEAKER_00 46:56

We took so my dog, he was a rescue, and we had to grow one of his bones. He had a break in one of his growth plates, and he we had to have this was before we had kids. He had a mechanism put in his arm that we had to grow his bone for him. It was wild. We had a thing we had to turn every day.

SPEAKER_02 47:16

He was a short king and he went and got a surgery to become a talkie.

SPEAKER_00 47:18

Just on the one arm. Otherwise, it would have. Anyways. So it was wild. It was wild. Wild time. That sounds expensive. It was very expensive. But they were our babies. Anyways, so we went to one of his follow-ups and he was in the lobby and some someone had brought a cat out. First time I think that we have experienced him experiencing a cat. He got very excited and made a mess on the floor. Oh. And it wasn't urine.

SPEAKER_02 47:45

Uh-huh. Was it a bitchie poo?

SPEAKER_00 47:48

It wasn't a poop. Ew, what really? Yeah. That dog straight up came all over the floor, and my husband had to go. We can definitely cut this. He had to go and get a towel out of the bathroom in the like in the area and like clean it up.

SPEAKER_02 48:08

I thought you were gonna tell the story about when I for some reason thought your kid had eaten dog poop, but it was sister's poop. Sister's poop. Yeah. Gross. All right. Well, that is this week's episode of Two Brains, One Bot, also known as T Bob. T Bob. T Bob out.