Domesticated Apex Predator: Cute Bengal Cat

You are wearing a genetic compromise. In 1963, a Californian named Jean Mill looked at the Asian leopard cat—a wild, solitary hunter of the deep jungle—and decided it would look excellent next to a mid-century modern sofa. She bred it with a domestic shorthair. Humanity stripped the terror from the beast, kept the exotic rosettes, and called it a Bengal. We engineered a leopard that uses a plastic litter box. Now you are going to put its face on your torso. This is a tri-blend shirt. Cotton, polyester, and rayon. Rayon is an artificial silk invented because the textile industry realized chemical pulp was vastly cheaper than boiling millions of silkworms alive. It is a fabricated luxury. It drapes perfectly across your collarbones. It breathes. You will wear this horrifyingly soft garment to the grocery store. You will stand in the produce aisle, squeezing a melon, while displaying the image of an animal mathematically designed to sever a spinal cord in complete silence. The internet insists this cat is cute. Its oversized eyes trigger an involuntary mammalian caregiving response in your cerebral cortex. You have no actual choice in the matter. You find it endearing. Buy the shirt. Wash it on cold. Let the synthetic fibers outlive you.