The Cat Who Pulled the Fur Over My Eyes

2004

     For those of you who are just entering my world, there has been a cat in one of the trees in our back yard for three full days and nights.  The same day we brought home our two new dogs, it made the bad decision to enter our yard.  I thought the cat was stuck in our tree in the back yard.  I actually felt sorry for it.  I thought it might starve up in our tree and its owner would be sad.  (This is significant, since I am, by no means, a cat lover.)  I can see now that I misjudged the creature.  It was, I'm sure, sitting up in the tree, biding its time, pretending to be forlorn.  All three of the dogs chased the air around the base of the tree, for three days, drooling in their doggie minds, hoping the (forgive me) stupid cat would somehow fall out of the tree.  (For those of you who are cat lovers, remember that I am speaking for the dogs here.)

     My fourteen-year-old son, Brian, climbed the ladder and tried to coax the Siamese-type fur ball down.  He set milk and tuna out for it.  Oh, were we bamboozled!  David came home from work one night and shook the tree (now don't panic, it was just a coaxing shake!) and then he shot water at the area around the cat (ok...I'll admit that the cat did get a little wet), but it steadfastly refused to descend.  All that night, it meowed pathetically in the tree, directly in line with our bedroom windows.  It played on our sense of sensibility, as we knew it was hungry, cold, wet and scared.

     This morning I awoke at five thirty to the sound of shining and two sharp doggie paws on my back.  Akita was fairly beside herself, and Toby had his back legs crossed.  When I let them out the kitchen door, there sat the, um, cat, on the railing of my deck.  It was then that I knew.  As surely as if it had spoken words, I heard it say "Here, doggie, doggie, doggie."  Thinking I must have been mistaken, I tried to coax the thing off the railing, away from certain death by doggie teeth.  It hung onto the railing with determined defiance, ears laid back, perturbed that I was attempting to mess up its plan.  My tack changed quickly as I warned the dogs back, away from certain death by felion teeth.

     It remained there for nearly an hour, taunting the dogs and refusing to leave.  Brian went out to take the trash to the end of our driveway, and made a game of trying to take it with him.  It finally fell off the railing (if you still have sympathy for it, I have sympathy for you), shook its butt, lifted its tail and took it sweet time sauntering off.  I can't be sure, but I thought I thought I heard it singing, as it left, "Who left the dogs out, who? who?"

     Good riddance!