Memories of “Cats”

Several years ago, during a routine game of Trivial Pursuit, I was asked who had written the book on which the musical “Cats” is based. I reached for the dice to roll again before I finished saying the words “T. S. Eliot,” in a voice that telegraphed the sentiment “Duh.” My fellow-gamers were aghast. None had an inkling that the author of “The Waste Land” had also penned, as a gift to his godchildren, “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.” There immediately followed an interrogation: How did I know so much about “Cats”? I did not think that having the soundtrack memorized meant that I knew “so much,” but it is the way of faux pas that we reveal ourselves more by what we think is normal than by what we think is strange.