Yesterday I called my friend Celeste to catch up and I told her I recently adopted a four-month-old cat. She immediately asked whether I ever let it outside to “eat rats and stuff” and breathed a sigh of relief at my simple “No.” Since I’ve known her, Celeste has never seemed like a real indoor cat enthusiast or anything, so I was a little surprised that she was so interested in whether or not my animal had been exposed to the throes of the natural world. And then she launched into this story about how there’s this parasite that gets into rats’ brains and eats away their fear of cats so the rat gets eaten by the cat because it doesn’t know any better and then the parasite is really happy because its ultimate goal is to be inside a cat but sometimes it gets into humans’ brains and they turn into schizophrenic cat ladies or dumb men.
So I looked it up. AND IT’S ALL TRUE!
There really is a parasite called Taxoplasma gondii that is super smart and evil. The Lord Voldemort of parasites, if you will. Its life cycle has two parts: the sexual part and the asexual part. The asexual part can occur in any cozy little warm-blooded mammal, but the sexual part can only occur in members of the Felidae family – cats. So yes, as Celeste said, it makes sense that the ultimate goal of the parasite is to always be in a cat. But how does it manage that?
When this vile little protozoa finds itself in the belly of a mouse, rat, or bird – which is usually where it’s born or implanted as a baby – it’s pissed. So it crawls up into the brain of that poor, unsuspecting creature and takes the wheel, convincing its vehicle that it loves the smell of cat pee. It does not want to sleep in its own bed anymore. It wants to sleep in a puddle of cat pee. It wants to roll in it, bask in it, be refreshed by it. The smell of cat pee suddenly gives the carrier an orgasmic sensation, so it heads for the nearest puddle of fresh piss… and gets eaten by the cat who made it.
The cat gobbles up that rodent like my cousins gobble up the Thanksgiving turkey, and the parasites find themselves in the belly of a cat. SCORE! They can now enter the sexual phase of their life and make babies to their little nuclei’s content. Then these new parasites get pooped out (as is nature’s way) and gobbled up by more rodents and the great circle of life begins again.
But sometimes the parasites get ambitious and decide they want a mansion instead of an igloo so they make their way into human bellies. Of course it’s gross in there, with all that swallowed bubble gum floating around, so they head for the highlands in between our ears. When Celeste told me this, I immediately thought of Animorphs, but apparently they still haven’t proven that those are real; instead, something worse turns into the people who play host to Taxoplasma gondii –
they turn into crazy cat ladies.
Women infected with the disease become more warmhearted and caring, according to a study – and they also develop schizophrenic tendencies. Men, on the other hand, just turn into assholes (Researcher Jaroslav Flegr said his male subjects became more suspicious, jealous, dogmatic, and expedient).
And scientists estimate that about half of the world’s population has been infected with Taxoplasma gondii, actually impacting human cultures. Why do you think the men at Brewdog thought it was a good idea to sell a 55% ABV beer inside of a dead squirrel? Because cats eat squirrels, which means that it’s never a bad thing to set up camp inside of them for a little while.
This is important stuff to know, people. As one blogger wrote, “If you know someone who suddenly starts acting crazy, you should ask him or her if they have a cat.”
So please, if I start acting up, stay away from my brain. For your own sake.
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