Stoned catbus theory

I was reading a book titled Magic Mushroom Explorer by Simon G. Powell, and I learned about a person named Terence McKenna. I learned that he coined the term Stoned Ape Theory, which entertained the idea that our distant primate ancestors, after venturing out of the forest and into the savannah grasslands, stumbled across psilocybin mushrooms which, while under the influence, inspired or facilitated certain novel traits such as language and art.

I set the book down and found myself looking at the kitchen towel that I’ve had looped around my cabinet handle for as long as I’ve had a cabinet, or a handle, to loop something around. On the towel there were exactly twenty-four cat faces, eight rows of three, each row with two cats facing away and one facing forward, the pattern alternating.

Looking closer at the towel, for the first time in my life I noticed that the cat face on the very last row was embroidered. I was struck because I never noticed it; not even the day that I bought it.

I examined it more closely. The golden eyes, white pearly grin, and brown nose, were all embroidered with colorful metallic thread that made the entire face pop with aliveness.

I studied it and wondered if it had been embroidered by hand. I don’t know much about embroidery and I’m not sure whether it’s still done by hand or if, at this point, it’s done mostly by machines. In any case, I felt that this one was hand embroidered.

I held it up and smiled, enjoying the experience. I felt like I was looking through the eyes of someone who had finished a job well done, admiring their own work, looking down at this grinning cat’s face and thinking about the household that it might go to someday, where somebody else might enjoy it as well.