Friday, December 14, 2012

Of Cats and Christmas

Gary is home for a few days but is concerned about his Aunt Shirley's cats, Mommy and Lily.  They are farm  cats who live in the chicken coop, but in the short while he has been staying on that Illinois farm he has become fond of them.  Lily is not all that friendly but Mommy warmed to Gary right away.

So, to come here for a few days, Gary talked his sister and his niece into taking his place.  They will visit Aunt Shirley in the nursing home, continue to clear some of the years of "collecting" from the house, and give the two cats some attention.  On Monday, Gary will go back and resume his duties.

How do these cats train us?  Rascal is certainly in charge in this house.  He decides what time I have to get up since the whole point of my rising from bed is to give him his breakfast. This is followed by his hairball medicine which he expects daily. He also has to have a treat for lunch and at night he has to have a share of whatever I am having for dinner.  Tonight it was fish.

Around nine in the evening he begins to tell me that it is time for me to go to bed because he wants to go upstairs with me to snuggle.

This morning he was being particularly bossy, meowing a plaintive half-Siamese yowl over and over while I was trying to write a short story for Black Coffee Fiction http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com There soon was a cat in the story, a half-Siamese cat who made a nuisance of himself on Christmas morning.

As Rascal kept bothering me, I became more and more irritated.  Writing is difficult enough without that constant MEEEEEOOOOOOOWWWWW.  Finally, I locked him out of the office but I could still hear a distant meeeeoooowwwww through the door.

When I get angry with someone I often put them into one of my stories....and kill them off.  It's all fiction, but it can be so satisfying.  I was now angry with Rascal so it was inevitable that the cat in the story came to a bad end.

If you want to find out what I did to that cat, read "A Perfect Christmas" at Black Coffee Fiction.  It's one of a series of depressing Christmas stories for people who hate the holidays.  By next winter I'll have enough for a book.

Keep in mind that I actually love Christmas...and Rascal is still alive.  

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