Remember when Planet of the Apes came out back in 1968 and we received a rather harrowing glimpse into a future where humans are no longer the dominant species? Do you also remember when Cats & Dogs came out back in 2001 and we received an equally harrowing glimpse into the possibility that a secret war between our domesticated furbabies is going on right under our noses?
Well, don’t look now, folks, because the best of both worlds is taking place in real life as we speak; “best,” in this case, meaning “most adorable.”
Caught in the act in a seven-second video distributed by TikTok‘s @pubity (via ContentBible), this kitty is demonstrating some awfully suspicious competency in human decorum. Indeed, rather than loaf around on the stairs or scratch the nearest piece of wood to protest the lack of a cat door, this cat hoisted himself up to knocker-level, and then rhythmically announced his presence to the owners of the house with that same mechanism. To top it all off, he even waited patiently for somebody to answer.
To the average onlooker, this may be a sign that cats have stepped up intellectually on the evolution ladder, and it may soon get to a point where they’re no longer beholden to our shelters and cat food. But if you really think about it, they’ve been planning this for centuries now; when was the last time you actually saw a human use a proper door knocker outside of a movie or television show? Clearly, the cats secretly installed those knockers into the door blueprints of yore so that, when the time came, they would be able to knock on doors like the civilized group they were destined to become.
Unfortunately, that origin would be preferable to the darker, real-life history of door knockers. According to Black Country Metal Works, knockers originated in Ancient Greece, where upper-class Athenians kept slaves, some of whom were instructed exclusively to answer the door; these slaves were chained to the door and could not leave their post, and were made to hold a metal bar attached to a plate on the door. This way, anyone who struck the plate would alert the slave of their presence, even the slave had fallen asleep. Upon realizing that this metal bar could be used as a weapon, door knockers took the shape of a ring, which is why they appear the way they do today.
So when the cats finally reach the end of the front-door-manners-to-world-domination pipeline, take solace in the knowledge that it was all part of karma’s plan to deliver justice for Ancient Greek human rights atrocities.