The party has just finished. It’s early, and the sun is rising. You’re hungry because your host was an awful cook (you had to go to the toilet at one point to secretly spit out their food!). 

The open-plan kitchen must’ve gotten to them, you think. It’s peaceful, and the curtain-less windows on the houses are misted. You glance inside of each as you walk past. You notice something strange…what the fur-ball?

Cats. There are cats in nearly every single window. How have I not heard about all these single women before? you ask. But unfortunately, these cats do not necessarily mean the owners are single. In fact, it seems pretty normal in Groningen to display one or, more often, two (stuffed) cats in the window, facing each other in perfect, petrifying, soul-piercing symmetry.

But take heed, because one out of a hundred of these ‘stuffed’ cats is very much alive, and it only takes the slightest blink for these things to send you screaming back to your student managers. So, on the ninety-ninth stuffed feline, brace your buttocks for the next window you pass – otherwise you may need a litter tray of your own. Perhaps you’re more cat-friendly than I. If so, just remember one thing: no matter how cute the cat is, don’t ask how much that pussy is in the window… they’ll just tell you that you’re in the wrong part of Groningen.

Why cats, though? And why stuffed cats? I’m not certain that I know. And neither does anyone I have spoken to (confided in) about the issue. There must be a good reason. In fact, I’m willing to bet that there is a better reason for having cats, which are the Dutch house-pets, in your window than a catcus—I mean, cactus.

Yes. If a window does not hold a cat or two, you’re sure to see a cactus in its place. Why? Again, no clue. I literally have no idea what this would have to do with anything. Like, literally, nothing. They’re not even impressive. I don’t know why the owners do it: they’re small, stumpy, and snappish… and their cacti are just as bad.

At least the Dutch keep their stuffed felines in their windows and, I don’t know, turn them into helicopters or something ridiculous—wait… or-vell…