Cougar? More like a Mufasa.

Cougar (n): a large, tawny cat, Felis concolor, of North and South America: now greatly reduced in number and endangered in some areas.

or....

Cougar (n): An older woman who frequents clubs in order to score with a much younger man.

Luckily, an encounter with the former didn't happen while I was out Saturday, but unfortunately, the latter did. Typically, cougar's are attractive, single females whose age ranges anywhere from the mid-40's to late 50's. They go to bars alone, or in a small pack of similar cougars. They'll get just drunk enough to make googly eyes at younger men, but stay sober enough to drive you both back to their mansion that their five ex-husbands are paying for.

Usually, an encounter with a cougar is every guy's MILF fantasy. However, the key to being a cougar is possessing some sort of trait that younger men would want to go after, i.e., good looks. This isn't being shallow or vain on the male's part, but if a guy is going to go out on a limb and get with a much older woman, she better have some sort of physical trait that draws us in.

If she looks like she just did a line of coke before firing up her meth lab, then we have a problem. The wannabe cougar at the bar on Saturday night looked like she might be under the influence of one or more of these. My friends and I were sitting on a couch close to her, but far enough away so we didn't feel like we would contract something...like rabies.

She was making odd gestures at my friend and I, giving us a "come here" hand signal and shrugging her shoulders when we didn't advance. She was by herself, which a good-looking, subtle cougar can pull off, but when you're more erratic and awkward than Rex Grossman in the pocket, we're going to have some problems.

She then moved slightly closer to us, staring at us before she covered up her face with her scarf, which is something a cougar should never do. Or anyone for that matter. "Why is she covering up her face," I asked, but then it soon became apparent.

She was taking a short nap, of course. Or coming in and out of her cocaine high, either one. She then started talking to the young guys on the couch by ours, and informed the one that she was, "incredibly horny," as we would later find out.

Rule number two of cougarship: don't pounce before sealing the deal. I.E., don't be that forward until you've actually talked to the person for more than 30 seconds. She then got on her phone, most likely to call her drug dealer/late-night hook-up.

Shortly after a phone conversation where we're not sure if she was actually talking to anyone, a guy that looked like Bret Michaels in about 40 years showed up, and in minutes, they were making out. They were a match made in Heaven. They then had a deep conversation, probably trading meth recipes.

She failed a being a cougar and ended up going home with someone her own age, much like when a guy tries to pick up the hottest girl at the bar, then ends up going home with the hot chick's not-so-good looking friend that is there to make all of her friends look more attractive.

To my knowledge, there isn't a term for failing to be a cougar. So, I hereby knight wannabe cougars as Mufasas, the old, male lion from the Lion King series. It only seems appropriate.