I saw this call for submissions today for an anthology about were-creatures. Thinking it might be fun to write a story about a werecat, since I’ve had twenty years experience with cats, I promptly plotted a story that no one wants to read. But it made Jim laugh, so I’ll share.

There is a man who is a werecat. Once a month he turns into a cat, and being a proper tomcat, goes out and gets himself in all manner of trouble, always waking up to find himself bloody and bruised. Eventually he decides this can’t go on, so he does the logical thing. He goes to the doctor and gets himself castrated. Now, every full moon, he curls up on the couch and takes a nice long nap.

Jim laughed and agreed that it was not a story people would enjoy. It would make men wince, and make a lot of people wonder if I hate men. I don’t. I just have big sleepy retired gentlemen cats.

Jim then wondered if I could get away with telling the story by having the narrator himself be a werecat trying to write a story explaining what life is like as a werecat.

“Isn’t that just like a programmer,” I said. “There’s no problem you can’t solve with another layer of abstraction!”