This is not another of those cute cat stories that make the Facebook rounds, largely because I think cats are as unfathomable as two-year-olds. Or teenagers.

Clara the cat joined our family as the responsibility of our teenage son. Somehow the connection seemed poetic.

We already had a cat.  Snickers was the responsibility of our college-age daughter who is moving out soon.

Maybe a little cat overlap could work as long as I had no responsibilities.

These cats’ problem wasn’t sashaying over my desk, waving a tail before my nose, knocking my glasses across the room, tromping on my keyboard — but I digress. Their problem was each other.

Neither liked the other.

Their owners thought they’d get acquainted and then play together.

Ha.

Responsible teenage son decided to comb and clip the tangles from Clara’s long hair. So he held her in his lap while he worked.

Clara growled at Snickers as though Snickers controlled the comb wirelessly. Every time the tangles were pulled, she snarled a little louder. When one tangle needed extra work, she suddenly launched a full-scale mauling on Snickers, who hadn’t bothered to ignore the hair styling party.

Bet he regretted that.

The cats seemed to like yowling at each other more than parading over my computer cables, scattering papers and nestling into the paper-thin space between my printer. Digressing again…

One evening we heard this now-familiar guttural noise rising from near the dining room table. Clara and Snickers were flopped on the floor just out of batting distance from each other. 

You could hear cat swear words in those growls but neither moved.

My son wandered onto the scene, watching the two combatants throw insults and threats without shifting their leisurely positions.

“Weird,” he said. “That is the laziest cat fight ever.”

Wow. Even more unfathomable than teenagers.