A RELATI0NSHIP WIH THE CAT

A RELATIONSHIP WITH THE CAT

I try to find places to compose myself, when the need arises, where I might not be disturbed, a place from which my compositions will emerge unabridged and uncensored. I thought the bathroom might be just the place and I was half right.  I was undisturbed even by the cat who seemed to sense that I was experiencing a creative moment and needed some time to myself. The bathroom is really not mine or my family’s, however. It is the cat’s bathroom, just as the house we like to think of as our own is really the cat’s house. The cat regards our visits to her bathroom as an optimum opportunity to spend some quality time with us, her devoted family.  Usually, now that we’ve been trained, when any of us needs to use the bathroom we don’t close the door behind us without looking down to see that we haven’t closed it on the cat who, always knowing what we are about beforehand, is usually coming in at the same time. Because she has misgivings about any of us being in her bathroom unattended, she will, if elsewhere in the house, when she hears the door to her bathroom close, put in an appearance outside in the hall, stand up on her hind legs and put her considerable weight to the bathroom door causing it to free itself of its tenuous grip on the strike and swing open. Not content to have simply fashioned a narrow corridor for herself through which she might then slip she glances derisively over her shoulder and gives the door a contemptuous swipe of her paw, knocking it fully open that all who pass by might have an unfettered view of the occupant and the activities therein. In either event she then makes a determination as to whether the occupant will be or is in the shower, at the lavatory or seated.  It’s the latter circumstance that suits her best for the occupant has clearly chosen this posture to be nearer the floor, hence nearer to her and hence, further still, more fully able to attend to her considerable needs.