Tags
Here it is Sunday afternoon, and I am finally sitting down to write this blog. I have avoided it all week, mainly because I feel like I am being blackmailed into writing, yet again, about You Know Who. It all started earlier in the week when this note was pasted on my computer. 
I had just gone upstairs to get something but, as is happening with alarming regularity lately, I promptly forgot what it was the minute I got there. So the only thing to do was to climb back down the 13 steps I had just climbed up so I could regroup the memory and find out what it was I had wanted upstairs.
However, when I returned I found, pasted to my computer, this rather threatening warning. They were very clever putting it over the Apple symbol. It made it look eerie and even more sinister than the words. Even if they hadn’t signed it, I would have figured out who wrote it. Rose always writes her “e” — as in “We” — backwards. She’s never mastered that letter. I knew I would now never remember what I forgot upstairs.
I suspected they were up to something No-Good when I caught them conspiring the day before. They’re never very subtle when they’re unhappy. But then, who is? Maybe I was supposed to figure out what was wrong right then and there. Perhaps I should have called a Family Meeting, opened the floor to them — like it isn’t already —
Rose, on the right, trying to persuade Nick to go along with her sinister plot.
to speak honestly about what it was that I had done that was bothering them. Needless to say, I knew that I was the guilty party. I always claim that I want this kind of straight-forward-tell-it-like-it-is honesty in my dealings with friends, clients, family and cats. But I didn’t. I just ignored them, naively thinking that they wouldn’t be mad at me for too long since it was almost suppertime. Rose, especially, would never miss a meal for a principle. Was I ever wrong about that! Cats can very easily accept your food offering without forgiving your sins.
They stewed around about their concerns for another couple of days. They politely ignored my sweet words and turned their backs to me whenever I took my corner on the couch for TV watching. As soon as I sat down, Rose murmuring loudly under her breath, would leave her perch on the back of the couch and choose, instead, to sit under the coffee table where she wouldn’t have to look at the back of my head.
Despite the menacing note of earlier in the week, I was still blithely unaware of any terrible wrongdoings that I may have committed to these two beastly buddies of mine. But, as any cat owner knows, there is only so much patience that cats will display before they demand that you take care of their needs, concerns and complaints. Thus, I shouldn’t have been surprised when, yesterday, this note appeared above their feeding troughs. There was nothing subtle about their list of demands.
This should have started, “We, the cats of this household, do hereby demand the following.” It’s a good thing they don’t read more.
Well, there it was in black and white. They were strategically waiting in the middle of the dining room table for my response. They knew that location would hurry my reply since someone was coming to dinner. I went in numerical order. I informed them that I’m not stupid, I knew that more Temptations was the only “better” treat they had in mind. Ain’t going to happen so suck it up. It was not a very diplomatic start to our negotiating. For number 2, I just held a mirror up to Ms. Rose and told her to take a good look and then ask for more food. She snorted her disapproval of my truth.
But then we got to Number 3 which, I must say, made me come off like an unfaithful spouse or something. I tried to be indignant and deny the whole thing, but they knew they had me there. Every day when I came home, they’d been sniffing my clothes and hands and shoes so knew — just like I knew when the Murmuring-Ex-Husband had been fooling around — that I had been seeing other cats! I confessed, “It’s true. I have been hanging out with Ms. Olive and Tag and Nina and Felix and Catallus and Sappho and Jade and now Kit. But it was all for you. I’m the Excellent Cat Sitter so I can make money to spend on you sweet ones.” “Yeah, yeah,” they snorted. “Prove it by taking care of Numbers 1 and 2.” “Temptations will be back on the menu starting tomorrow,” I promised. This blog fulfills Number 4 for the moment and I shudder to think of what those other “wants” will be in the future.
I just know, it’s a good thing that they haven’t figured out yet that one of their favorite toys is missing and is now being enjoyed by a sweet, little ginger cat a couple of blocks away.
Annie's Odyssey 