You walk into the room. The first thing you see is that the cat is on the mat. The precious mat you bought at the Grand Bazaar in Tehran, back in what it seems like ages ago. The cat is on the mat –again! – but she shouldn’t be.
The game is lost. Get over it. No matter what you’ll do, you can’t stop the cat from going onto the mat. The cat will defy orders. She will go on the mat, even though she knows perfectly well she mustn’t. And even if she is not on the mat right now, how can you know where she was just minutes ago? How do you know that she will not jump on the mat the very moment you look elsewhere?
It’s tricky. Especially if you are dealing with a mischievous cat, like the one in question here. You can’t do much. You have to catch her in the act. You have to see her with your own eyes. But as we said, the game is already lost. You can’t possibly be there all the time to monitor the mat. The moment you look elsewhere, the cat will jump on it. You know that. Lessons from history.
