Pointless Pets Part One

I’m still trying to figure out how I can make some gainful use out of all these unproductive animals I have at home. (Unfortunately, the job as Schrödinger’s Cat was already filled by the time The Cat got her CV off. Good jobs don’t grow on trees, you know, and there must have been at least 100 other cats with her qualifications.) Anyway, let’s get back to this pointless-pet problem.

Linguistically speaking, all of them have possibilities and uses. Each and every one of them has already long found his/her purpose in idiomatic English. (I can’t say the same for home.) Let’s start, for personal reasons, with cats, and look at some of the ways we can put them to use,  be it only in our language.

Where to start?
You let the cat out of the bag when you tell a secret and you weren’t supposed to.
A visibly nervous person looks like a cat on a hot tin roof (or on hot bricks). 
You look like something the cat dragged in if you look like, well, something the cat dragged in.
A room can be so small that there is no room to swing a cat.
Not only do all roads lead to Rome, but there is also more than one way to skin a cat. (Has a nice ring to it)
A rich and generally powerful person is often referred to as a fat cat.
You are said to be grinning like the Cheshire Cat when you’re grinning ear to ear.
If you are reluctant to speak, people may ask if the cat’s got your tongue.
It’s raining cats and dogs when it is really raining hard. 

And, as we all know, when the cat’s away, the mice will play.

Naturally, there are countless more, but I just can’t list them all. As we can clearly see, cats do at least contribute something to society. They are not completely useless.
Oh, and before I forget, I wanted to mention one more cat-thing. Many of you may or may not realise this, but cats have 9 (read: nine) lives in English.
Think about it.

Apropos of idioms, here is an interesting site I found. It’s called Ponderings of a Cowboy Hat English Teacher. He goes quite in depth in his treatment of idioms - I personally appreciate the cowboy slant (duh). And here is a site that lists endless idioms (quantity goes before quality).

For more of my pointless pet idioms, stay tuned.

english language cat idiom