The Grumpy Room

While waiting to get a haircut this morning I was reading an article in the paper about a cat that knows when people are going to die. Oscar (pictured below) is a resident at Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, where he chills on the severe dementia ward. What makes Oscar so special is that doctors and nurses swear that he can predict when patients are going to die.

So far Oscar has predicted the deaths of almost 50 patients on his floor. The staff have observed that Oscar tends to avoid patients who are not on the verge of passing, and will only curl up with people who shortly after pass away. Once a patient has passed, Oscar leaves and continues his rounds of the ward. It has even been noted that if “kept outside the room of a dying patient, Oscar will scratch on the door trying to get in”.

There is a short article in the New England Journal of Medicine chronicling a day in the life of Oscar. While most people think it is wonderful and sweet that Oscar provides hospice services, I personally am a little more suspect. I hypothesize that Oscar is in fact an agent of death, who steals the souls from poor helpless patients who are powerless to resist. Everyone knows that cats ARE evil after all. I mean look at that heartless stare and slight smirk.

It also makes me wonder if I should be concerned that our cats follow me around and like to lay on my lap. When I close them out of a room they paw and scratch on the door to get in too…