DOOLEY - Opening segment (Scroll down for previous chapters)


     My math skills prevent me from calculating the number of times I’ve seen young children standing outside the door of the local grocery with a small box of cute, cuddly, FREE kittens.   

     But anyone with common sense knows the kittens are only there when you happen to bring your kids along for the ride.  Sadly, those who have lived their lives under the iron paw of a cat are never around to alert those of us who fall short of common sense.   

     So there I stood, gazing into the box with my kids and listening to a doctoral thesis on the merits of pet ownership.  Soon I heard a still, small voice that proceeded to crescendo into a loud, whining vocal duet.  ”Daddy, can we have a kitten?”  I was overcome with guilt.  For years, I had been told that to be a no-pet family was to be un-American, almost traitorous.  It was this burden of guilt, along with a little wailing and gnashing of teeth from my kids, which led me to say, “Yes, you may have a kitten.”  
    
     After all, to be in a home without shedding hair, shredded sofa ends, and sneezing guests, is to be unloving, uncaring, insensitive, and probably in need of immediate psychiatric care.  It obviously shows a wanton disregard for the welfare of your children.  Not wanting my kids to accuse me of wanton disregard, I decided what better way to teach them about responsibility, than caring for a pet.

     I knew I surpassed the qualifications for owning a pet.  I knew nothing.  Hoping to give the appearance of credibility, I determined to learn all I could about these fickle fur balls.  I wanted to be in charge.  The first lesson I learned?  I was not in charge.  I would never control the cat.   Getting a starving pack of wild hyenas to fetch a stick would be easier.

      It wasn’t long before I understood why the cat was free.  Who would pay to be in servitude?  He was already asking for keys to the house.

     We named him “Dooley.”  Almost immediately after arriving home with Dooley, he was outside with a ball of twine and a paw full of stakes, marking his territory.  Actually, very few cats use this method anymore.  Most of them, like Dooley, prefer the “imaginary line.”  This is one of the intriguing mysteries of the cat world.  Your cat maps out an imaginary line that runs all around your property.  This is the Territorial Rights line.  Your cat is the only one who knows the location of this imaginary line.  This bothers me.  I hate not knowing. 

     Dooley refused to show me the line.  If I knew where it was, I would dig it up.  Anyway, along this boundary is the EWS (Eerie Warning System), a high frequency alarm which only your cat can hear.  Any cat crossing the line triggers the EWS. (This is precisely why I would dig it up.) Your cat then sends out his own warning, a blood-curdling screech which usually awakens you in the middle of the night.  Fortunately, there is a plate glass window between your cat and the intruder, which saves fur and bloodshed.

     I’m certain that a ten foot high cement barrier surrounding the house would be more effective, and certainly quieter.  But the cat is not paying for it.  

 

 

To be continued...check back soon