Curiosity killed the cat

Funnily enough, I can remember clear as crystal when I first heard this saying. It was one of those moments that'll stay with me for a long, long time or I might even go as far as saying forever. Maybe because it turn out to be a ROFLMAO moment for me.

About 2 years ago (must've been late July or early August of 2008), I was, lack of a better word 'stalking' a guy in my college (harmless really...mostly I just tend to notice him more than anyone else around, one of those 'silly crushes') and my poor roommates had to put up with my daily inputs of how great and wonderful he is (still is someone I highly respect and admire though I don't, you'll be happy to know 'stalk' him anymore).
And so, one day I must've been saying something about him (I can't remember what now) when my dear roommate said, "You know, curiosity killed the cat."
I think that must've been the FIRST time I heard that saying and for some reason I thought it was BEYOND hilarious and burst out laughing. Few minutes later I was still laughing! Months after that, it became one of those moments that me and my roommate look back on and say, "Remember that time when..." Ah, brings tears of laughter to my eyes even now. She'll probably be reading this laughing too!

Ever since I heard the saying I always, always wonder what exactly was the cat so curious about that got itself killed? It was something I debated constantly with my roommate about. 'Curiosity killed the rat' makes more sense to me. The rat was curious about the cheese, took a nibble, and got trapped shut. That makes perfect sense. The cat? That I don't know. Don't cats supposingly after all have 9 lives? But still, somehow the cat got itself immortalized in these words as being curious and then got itself killed. So, I Googled it (actually I 'Yahoo!-ed' it but for some odd reason we find that we tend to say we 'Google' everything even though we use different search engines) and found a story on how somewhere in America (New York? Can't remember now...it was some time ago that I read the article) there was a cat (true story!) that got 'curious' about the chimney, climbed up and got itself stuck. The owner called the fire department and after many fruitless attempts...they still couldn't reach the cat! So in the end the cat died in the chimney. Tragic...but wait! There is a 'happy twist'.

Don't get me wrong. I'm sure neither the owner, fire department, or for that matter the cat found anything 'happy' about it dying (lets have a few minutes of silence for the dead cat. May you rest in peace curious cat).

The twist for me is this: at least the cat died knowing. Doesn't that make the death of the cat not been in vain. The cat didn't die for nothing. It was curious what was up the chimney, climbed up to explore, probably found nothing but at least it's curiosity was answered.

Doesn't that make it worthwhile? Does it? Imagine being curious but never doing anything about it. You'll live your life always wondering what could have been and you'll never know.

But we should ask ourselves, is death too big a price to pay for being curious and having our curiosity answered? Is 'dying, knowing' worth it? Would you rather have lived a life always wondering?

Could we then, blame Pandora for opening the box? Though the box unleashed a terrible death to everyone else, at least Pandora died knowing what was in the box and that my friend, she alone knew.

So, ask yourself this: Had YOU been in Pandora's place, would you have opened the box?