You can use Bash (and I assumed it works in zsh too) variables to save you there. eg

    grep something !$

`!$` will be replaced with the last parameter of the previous command. Crude example

    cat /etc/hosts
    grep 12.34.56.78 $! # will be executed as grep 12.34.56.78 /etc/hosts

I find this extremely useful for when I'm cat'ing a file to get a sense of it's output then wanting to do something more meaningful with it in the next command.

That all said, I have absent-mindedly done my fair share of stuff like this too:

    !! | less
    # eg will run as `cat /etc/hosts | less`
    # if `cat /etc/hosts` was the previous command run

so I certainly wouldn't look down on people who have "abused" cat due to muscle memory.