(Hmm, that sentence ... am I getting wordier and wordier, or is it just me? Anyway.)
They have one of those "feather on a string" toy things, which they love, but I hardly ever use it to play with them, because I am so damn lazy. I figure I'll be more likely to use something where I don't have to run all over the living room like one of those creepy baton-twirler types ... you know, the ones who dance with a long ribbon on a stick. So far, the laser pointer stands up to the Sisyphus Test of Sloth.
But the packaging caught my eye as I was getting ready to recycle it. "Drives cats wild!" it promises, and that is certainly true, though my cats don't have that stupid an expression on their faces. But what I love is how the packaging tries to be inclusive of diverse members of the animal kingdom, without simply using the same slogan over again:
"Reptiles are intrigued"? Interesting. While that brings to mind my cousin's story of working in PetCo and discovering that the iguanas had escaped their cage, forcing the employees to chase them all over the store as well as call the paramedics for one poor old woman who discovered the foot-and-a-half-long lizard in her shopping cart at the other end of the parking lot, I had no idea that reptiles could be intrigued of their own accord. Clearly I don't mix with the sauropsidian world enough.
Oh anonymous English major who toiled long and hard to vary the word usage on that cheesy piece of advertising, I salute you. (I would put an exclamation point there, but you seem to have them all tied up.) Remember that no matter how much your job may suck, you are getting paid more than I am.
And if I can ever figure out how to take pictures while holding down the on button and waggling the pointer all about, I'll post some cat action photos for you all. Or I would if the camera wasn't all the way across the room.
7 comments:
My kitty loves her laser pointer. However, I have never tried it on a reptile. I wonder what an intriqued lizard looks like.
Iguanas cannot be intrigued or made curious by much of anything other than another iguana, or a mirror image of themselves, which they think is another iguana. (They are not the brightest bulbs in the animal kingdom.)
Like you, though, I love the desperate copywriter's idea of trying to lure iguana owners into buying this toy: "Just think, we'll probably rake in millions in the iguana market alone!"
Maybe a head nod from the iguana? I got a waggle from one at the zoo last summer. Not a nod, which I'd seen before, but a 'what the hell are you?' waggle.
Play with the cats. Be at peace. Torment them.
I'm surprised the box didn't also say "young children and teens go wild for it too!" Why limit the marketing to only pets?
Reptiles are intrigued by it. Then I eat them.
--Shimmy
Shimmy, you eat reptiles? Hunh.
I think I'll stick with veggies.
Only when I catch them and knock 'em around the kitchen first (and nobody takes them away from me). Veggies are fine. I prefer the houseplants in the living room. But sometimes I settle for fallen leaves on the back porch.
--Shimmy
Post a Comment