comic relief

Everyone needs a little comic relief in the office. In the garden it is called "whimsy." In a movie it might be called a "sight gag" but on my desk it is "comic relief."

A lot of us have very serious offices where important activity takes place reflecting the years of study in properly accredited institutions. We've studied the books, written the papers, learned massive amounts of information from professors that were as serious as a heart attack. Now that we're in our own offices we need something to lighten the mood.

Some people choose a funny screen saver. Others drink their coffee from funny mugs. Me, I'm amused with the oddity of a mummified cat replica. This is an image whose makers intended to be serious. After all it is originally from Abydos, Upper Egypt, perhaps 1st Century AD. This is one of several artifacts from the British Museum's collections. We all know that the British are a pretty serious bunch.

Listen to this description of the mummy, "This cat is associated with the goddess Bastet, whose cult centre was at Bubastis in the Delta. The cat was very elaborately wrapped. A lot of effort was frequently spent on the wrapping and external appearance, while the remains inside are often incomplete. It seems likely that many cats did not die a natural death; many are aged less than one year old. The burial of an animal mummy in a specially designed catacomb was seen as a pious act."

While the British have a wonderful, albeit wacky sense of humor, I doubt if the Egyptian mummy makers had any sense of humor. Anyone who could dream up a way to stick an instrument in a dead person's nose and drag out their brains has taken "morbid" and "disgusting" to a whole new galaxy. And to mummify a cat, well that's a completely alien notion to most normal human beings.

So combine a demented culture, a sick religion, an overly obsessed death culture, and you end up with very weird relics that land in a British museum; and now I have a replica of said item on my desk simply because it makes me smile. It is my favorite cat. My grandson, Little Zee, broke one ear off and in my estimation that makes it even more charming and humorous. Hopefully something on your desk makes you smile.