‘90s FAMILY : Forget Dogs . . . <i> Cats</i> Are This Man’s Best Friends

Kids are great. Other people’s. For about three minutes, or when they’re leaving. My son and I really became pals when he turned 18 and could speak in sentences that didn’t begin with “I want. . . .”

My second family features my two cats, Rocket and Fido Dick Menace.

Cats are much cooler than kids. They may never grow up to be President, but at least they’re not always hitting you up for money, wearing your clothes or borrowing your car. They may have tongues, but they don’t use them to talk back. They never call collect. And they purr like a ’67 Chrysler for no apparent reason.

Cats will start bugging you to take them for a ride about the same time they ask for a vacuum cleaner for Christmas. That means you’ll never have to buy a car seat or clean up soggy, yucky ice cream cones that died alone in the back seat. No self-respecting cat would want to ride in the back of your pickup and yap and yowl at innocent bicyclists. And even on a short trip to the vet, no cat will laugh at your AM oldies station.

Cats aren’t sentimental. Although it might be the nice thing to do, you never have to buy your cat a birthday present. And you certainly will not have to take the cat to Disneyland, Lion Country Safari or endure the mild uproar at Chuck E. Cheese’s.

Cats don’t interrupt your viewing habits. They don’t care about video games or Batman’s secret identity, or any powerfully irritating rangers, annoying purple reptiles or pizza-munching, cliche-spouting turtles. You’ll never be hassled into watching “Lassie,” “Alf” or Werewolf Week on the Sci-Fi Channel.

And cats are easily entertained. They chase or kill everything smaller than they are that walks, creeps, crawls, slithers, flies and hasn’t been dead more than 10 minutes. Unlike kids, cats earn their keep, and they don’t eat nearly as much.

Cats are fastidious dressers and don’t leave grubby little fingerprints everywhere. The self-cleaning oven was surely based on the cat. Cats never leave the toilet seat up, rings around the bathtub or wet towels on the floor.

And they’re too dignified to pant and

slobber.

Cats are beautiful. My daughter, Rocket, is in fact, the Kim Basinger of cats. No human mother has a cuter kid than Rocket.

OK, so she’s no genius. But I didn’t fall in love with her for her mind, and because she doesn’t have one, she has to stay inside. It’s the usual feline dichotomy: Cats live a long time if you keep them indoors. Curiosity doesn’t kill the cat--poor crosswalk habits and morons in mini-trucks do.

That’s why I live in an apartment. I moved here four years ago from a real house to protect Rocket from all that bad traffic outside. A plane may crash into this place, but no jerk is gonna run over Rocket on her fifth floor balcony. The only problem is, with Rocket inside, it makes it hard for me to go outside. If I do, cute little Rocket pouts. As a good cat dad, I can’t have that.

Which is why she now has a brother to keep her company.

The new arrival, Fido Dick Menace, used to belong to the next-door neighbor. He spent his days as a latchkey cat while his owner was at work. One day, he came through a hole in the balcony wall and never left.

Fido, a dog trapped in a cat’s body, is the smartest cat I’ve ever seen. Fido fetches, sits, shakes, drinks out of the sink, stands on his hind legs to let you know he wants something, and waits by the door. He even watches the Bruins on TV. He only bites once in awhile, putting the ow in meow .

Sometimes, my girlfriend says I like my cats better than I like her. Of course, that’s ridiculous. Then again, the cats are always on time, they never make me go shopping, they don’t drink the last diet soda, they never vacuum the rug during playoff games, they don’t ask me to go to the movies. . . .

She may be right.