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In fact, her behavior became so ritualized concerning the Temple of Pee-pee, that it resembled nothing so much as a new religion. Her behavior, called superstitious behavior by Skinnerian psychologists, is the type that arises when random actions become associated with some reinforcing event. For example, you probably have heard of rats being trained to press levers in order to obtain food. By varying the number of bar-presses necessary to obtain one pellet of food and other variables, psychologists are able to get quantitative measurements of behavior, albeit quite simple behavior. One day someone decided to see what would happen if you simply rewarded the rats with food every so often, regardless of what they did in the interim. So, he set up the mechanism to dispense food at a regular time interval and went away.

When he returned the next day, he found that the rats were displaying very strange and complex behavior. For example (say), shortly before the food was scheduled to come down the chute, one of the rats would spin around three times, stand on its hind legs and then rub its snouts on the cage wall. Then he would get some food. Of course the behavior had nothing whatsoever to do with the reward, but, apparently, the rat had, by mere chance, "discovered" that if it did these things, it would get food. That it would get the food anyway, was not revealed to the rat.

That is the origin of the titles for this series of articles. That is, ask yourself, "How many beats of a tom-tom does it take to make the sun reappear after an eclipse?"

Well, Nancy is pushing 16 at this time...a very large number of cat years (112 in human years, by some estimates!) and we decided it was time to get another cat, to replace her after her impending demise.

That was two years ago. We got a male cat, named Frodo, which was somewhat of an error. Despite the fact that both cats have been "fixed" and can not reproduce, they go through mating rituals...or, at least, a portion of those rituals. This makes him 14 and her 112 in people years. Talk about liking older women!

You may not be familiar with feline mating rituals, but they are noisy and annoying, especially when they are going on in the middle of the night. Of course, they never consummate the damned act. After he stalks her for a while...if he doesn't, she will prance in front of him with her tail in the air until he does...they get as far as Frodo jumping on Nancy's back, grabbing the fur at the back of her neck and mounting her...sort of...he doesn't know what to do at this point. Then Nancy growls and hisses and escapes his clutches, only to repeat this over and over until we catch them and separate them.

This ritual is instinctive, of course, and has nothing particularly to do with religion. But, Frodo too has developed his own brand of religion as well, eschewing Nancy's variety...he ignores her bathroom behavior. It seems that Frodo likes soda crackers...and rice cakes...and spinach. He won't eat wet cat food, which is almost pure meat or fish, but will consume dry cat food, which contains a goodly amount of grain meal. We now have a goddamn VEGETARIAN cat! Who ever heard of such a thing?

He too, has developed rituals around these peculiar tastes, in particular, around the eating of soda crackers. These delicacies are one of our main snack foods. We often scarf them up while we are sitting watching television. As soon as Frodo hears the rustle of us opening the packaging around the crackers, he hops up on the bed beside us, sits there patiently in a classic regal Egyptian cat position and respectfully awaits our breaking off of small chunk. We then hold it up for him to sniff...if we don't he pretends that he doesn't know it is there...then lay it at his feet on the blankets. He then "kills" it, by batting it around two or three times, then plucks it up with his tongue and chews it up. This is rather hard for him, cats normally being pure carnivores have no grinding teeth...no molars...so he spills a lot of crumbs. Yet, he patiently licks up each and every crumb. At each "service," he consumes two or at most three of these morsels.

He is so obsessed with this ritual cracker eating ritual, that he will drop whatever he is doing...even chasing Nancy around for some mock nookie...and hop up onto the bed "temple" to be cleansed of his sins...or whatever. Sometimes we use this as a ruse to lure him away from his noisy cat mating activities in order to separate him and Nancy...so we can get some sleep. The alternative is a difficult "hunt." That is, both Gypsy and I have to chase him around the house trapping him and scooping him up. Cats, being stalkers and hunters, hate for the same to be done to them and are very good at eluding their captors.

But, Frodo's religion can always be used against him. The enticement of the Great Cracker Ceremony always circumvents his other cat instincts. Religion is a powerful force...

See you tomorrow...

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