Bottled Water

People like to dump stuff outside their houses in Japan. Stroll around any neighbourhood in Tokyo and you will often see piles of crap lying around. Old televisions and carpets seem to be a firm favourite. However, what has me perplexed is the large number of bottles full of water you often see lined up in military precision along the roadside. You just have to wonder why! Is it some strange addiction to collecting? Hey I got bored of collecting stamps and decided to give bottled water a go. I now have 200 bottles in my collection on permanent display outside my house!
Determined to discover if this is some new craze or fashion statement, I asked a few Japanese friends. The answer I got is that the water is for homeless cats. An understandable gesture, especially on a hot summer night, I thought. But how do the cats get the bottle tops off and have a drink, I enquired. But no, I had the wrong end of the stick again, a common problem that results from Japanese twisted logic and poor English. The water is not for the cats in the sense of a drink, but to actually scare them off. Tokyo can't be a city of cat lovers, after all then.