Cat’s Clause

Historical April 1998 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.

As previously established, I am a geriatric cat named “Joe”.

My first ever written message was recently published in the “The Times”, for which I wish to thank Lana Stein’s cats.

There are so many topics for a philosophical feline, but I am tired this date.

My contract with brother Pinky as my designated mouser (editor), includes a ‘:cat’s clause” that allows him to write his own stuff when I’m tired.

He needs no help with the writing as he can switch on the P(C)Cpersonal cat’s computer—from “suspend” mode with the lightest leapy vibration and walk the keys without assist. Nothing to it. So. dear readers, today’s Cat’s Message is from Pinky.

I must get catatonic. Joe Cat is a different generation than I, a really old cat. He’s all skinny and motley and disheveled.

While I do respect him generally as the former “Cat of the House,” I am clearly now the alpha feline at 61xx Washington. No matter that I am a male called “Pinky”. No matter that I need a bath after every visit to the vet and accept it with uncatlike gratitude. No matter that I have shared a chair in the yard with squirrels. . . . and have a delicate stomach, in spite of weighing fifteen pounds. No matter that my idea of prey is a feather stick which I retrieve like a dog. . . .when I feel like it. No matter that I squeak when picked up and am often involuntarily kissed.

I am still and clearly the alpha cat.

I am at all times dressed formally with white shirt and gloves.

I am the softest cat.

I am the beautifullest cat I can be found wideeyed in the midst of all human functions in the household. a real party animal.

I may pretend to be Alger (Hiss) occasionally just to let an errant kid know that, while I have no claws, I can still be scary and they better back off, I am otherwise a totally mild-mannered cat (some would say a puss).

I am safe. 1 believe that I have never had a problem, although Joe Cat has urged me to consider with seriousness that we both came from the Humane Society. Yawn.

He was much older than I when rescued.

I was just a baby, hand-size in fact, playing with a toy when “They- arrived to interrupt me.

I was newly weaned.

All my siblings were there with me.

I fell asleep on Jane’s arm in the “visiting room-. Worry? Darling little me?

I was a shoein for a good home. Grateful? Nah.

For me, the world was never meant to be a troubled place. Now, my Brother “Itty- agrees with Joe Cat on that distasteful subject of homelessness in cats. Itty says a house with a bottomless bowl, yard with fence, toys, laps, sanitation management and no stress is a “REAL DEAL.” Itty reminds that when he came here, Frank McCourt had nothing on him.

I admit, Itty was so malnourished that the tip of his tail was crooked (disgraceful), so thin and non-descript that “They” gave no thought to T.S. Eliot and just called him “Itty”. Although now ltty and I wrestle and play like crazy, he reminds me that for the first three months he was here, he only came out of the basically unused bedroom long enough to befriend me and eat. Otherwise. he slept until his tail straightened out and his fur began to shine, transformed by IAMS into “Itty the Sleek”.

He kept eating until he began to resemble a small pumpkin.

He became “Itty the Greatfull” and took to giving baths to everyone—the humans, all his fellow cats, not just mois!

When the winter of ’97 arrived and Itty realized that going outside in weather is a cat’s option in this house (a cat’s clause he never exercises) he became “Itty the Brave”.

Now when the Kirby is fired up. and Joe Cat and I flee like our tails are on fire, “Itty” just sits there like vaccuum cleaners are his best friend.

He says he never wants to be “barn again” and, if that means staring down a cat-eating vaccuum cleaner, he’s up to the task.

He says hardship is that powerful a motivator. Hope I never find out.

Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, April 1998.

Read this article in the original newspaper issue.

Original source: SD_Times1998_04.pdf, printed page(s) 6; PDF page(s) 6.