Let the Cat out of the Bag

When you have a secret, especially if it is a piece of particularly good news, it is hard to keep it bottled up inside. You have the power to make it public, and it is tempting to use that power. However, you probably do not have the power to undo your decision once you begin to talk. Once a secret is out in the open we can say that the cat is out of the bag.

If you have ever owned or handled a cat, you can imagine the difficulty involved in forcing it into a bag. Cats don't like to be forced into doing anything, and least of all if that something is being stuffed into a bag. If you were walking down the street with the bag in one hand, people would notice that something was wriggling inside, and they would be suspicious. They would be anxious for a look inside. If they did convince you to open the bag just a little, the cat would push its way out and bolt off in terror, and the bag would be empty.

Something very similar happened to me last summer. We had a guest staying at our apartment who was alergic to cats, so I arranged to take the cat to a friend's place. Rather than a bag, I carried him in a cardboard box. As I walked down the street with his food in one hand and the box in the other, it began to lurch and emit loud meows, drawing the attention of the bystanders on the street. He grew more and more frightened and soon managed to push one of his paws out of the box. Just before we got to my friend's place, he burst out of the box and ran towards the river. It was four days before I found him again, and he was quite shaken when I did manage to bring him home.

Just as I'm not good at keeping a real cat in a box, I also have trouble keeping the cat in the bag, metaphorically speaking. It is pretty obvious when I am hiding something. You could accuse me of wearing my heart on my sleeve. If I am happier, or sadder, than usual, people can quickly tell; once they ask what's wrong, I'm liable to let the cat out of the bag, or spill the beans (which means the same thing).

Another idiom that comes from the independance of cats is used to describe a situation where someone has to manage a number of different people or groups, all of whom have their own idea of where they want to go. We say that it is like herding cats. Unlike cows or sheep, cats are not naturally comfortable in large groups acting of one mind. Whether people are better compared with sheep or cats is of course to be determined on a case by case basis. There are certainly some times when the image of a "catherd" trying to herd cats feels very appropriate.