This is the long forgotten story of how cats came to have nine lives. You see a long, long time ago, cats only had one life, just like everyone else. Cats were very well respected and not for their memes on the internet, but just for who they were. There was one cat in particular who was very smart, playful, and lovable, but he had one main flaw, curiosity. Tom loved to explore and he was a very hands-on cat.
Tom spent his days doing many cat-like things such as curling up in cardboard boxes or chasing any small thing that moved, or even simply taking naps in peculiar places. Nonetheless, he was a source of endless entertainment to his owners and to the gods. One day Tom was chasing a butterfly and he accidentally managed to be hit by a car. The gods decided that Tom had been a little careless, but that he still deserved a second chance. So they brought Tom back to life. Tom really didn’t notice the gift he’d been given and he continued to carry on as normal.
The next day, Tom decided to take a nap. He found a very nice warm cave inside to sleep in. Little did he know, it was not actually a cave. It was a dryer that had been left open by a careless owner. A short time later, the dryer was shut and it automatically turned on, ending Tom’s second life. Well, the gods thought that Tom had experienced an unfair cruelty and they granted him another life.
Tom continued to be his cute and amusing self and yet he seemed to continue finding himself in deadly situations. There was the time that he drowned when trying to catch a fish in his owner’s giant fish tank, and the time when he decided to eat a poinsettia, and the time when he got stuck in a plastic bag. There was also the time when his owners left him outside overnight in the bitter cold because they thought he had already been let in.
Finally, the gods decided that things could not go on like this forever. They got together and considered the problem. They decided that curiosity was one of the many things that they loved about cats but there needed to be a limit on their second chances. The cats would retain their wisdom and their eagerness to enjoy the simple things in life but they would only be given nine lives. After that, they could get no more chances. They would continue to be a source of endless entertainment for both the humans and the gods.
