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Great Maines of the Past
Of Cats and Queens
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The Joy of Cats
Panic in the Night
Homecoming
Cats 'n' Consequences
On the Road
My First Show
For Better or Worse
Life in South Texas

Funny things happen when one lives with a large number of cats and kittens. ("Large number" is the closest I can come to stating exactly how many cats we have. As you no doubt know, the counting system of most primitive peoples went 1... 2... 3... herd which is roughly how many cats [herd] share our house.)

One recent night we had one of those experiences which are usually described as "funny" after the fact, but which come closer to "sheer terror" when they are actually happening.

What happened was that my wife shook me awake at 4:00 a.m. (actually it was precisely 3:58 a.m., which I know thanks to the miracle of digital alarm clocks) and announced in an hysterical tone, "FLUFFY IS DEAD!"

You have to understand that "Fluffy" is not this cat's real name - all of our cats' real names document their descent from the founding families of catdom. However, I have learned through painful experience not to use the real name for any cat about whom I speak. Many years ago, during the time which I refer to as my "innocence," I spoke of a cat with whom we had problems and made another cat person extremely angry by suggesting that the cat in question was less than perfect. This person's response took the form of a threat to sue, to which I secretly looked forward, since my worldly possessions at the time consisted entirely of cats, cat furniture, and broken pieces of once-useful household objects, which I felt obliged to save for gluing together once the last cat in our family went off to college, and I thought that if this person sued and won, it would improve my life no end. Unfortunately, the offended party came to its senses before we went to court, and I still have the cats, their furniture, and thousands of fragments.)

Anyway, back to what happened at more or less 4:00 in the morning (as soon as I remember what it was).

Oh yes: "Fluffy" (remember - not her real name but the cat whom this story started to be about) was one of the lucky cats selected on that fateful night to sleep in the bedroom, as opposed to the majority of the herd who were forced to rough it on the (mostly destroyed) furniture downstairs.

This selection is one of the nightly highlights around our house - since we have a herd of cats, we have to limit the number who sleep in our bedroom. This leads us to conduct a nightly event which is reminiscent of stock footage from the old TV show "Rawhide," in which brave cowboys ride among a stampeding herd of cows, cutting out the fortunate few bovine extras who have been chosen for facial closeups. Anyway, the nightly roundup of cats which are to be allowed into the bedroom is very similar to this scene, except that we don't have the advantage of being on horses and using lassos.)

Anyway, back (again) to the point of this story: At 4:00 a.m. (more or less) my wife sat up in bed and exclaimed, "FLUFFY IS DEAD!"

This got my immediate attention, especially after my joy and comfort dug her elbow into my ribs, so I responded alertly by saying "huh?" By this point, there was nothing to do but turn on the bedside light, at which point "Fluffy" looked up at me and yawned hugely.

It was immediately obvious to me, alert as I am when coming out of a sound sleep, that "Fluffy" had not been dead, but only in a deep sleep (which I also had been enjoying until this drama erupted).

Her "coma" was simply the result of the vigorous physical exertion inherent in one of those mystical cat rituals in which an exuberant feline attempts to travel in time by exceeding the speed of light.

(You may recall how this trick was accomplished by the USS ENTERPRISE in Star Trek IV, in which the ship CATapulted around the sun. "Fluffy" does basically the same thing, except around the bedroom instead of the sun.)

Anyway, back to the point of this story... (again).

Once we had established that "Fluffy" was indeed breathing, purring, and demonstrably alive, I was thoroughly awake and suffused with the realization that my digitized alarm would begin going BEEP... BEEP... BEEP... in less than an hour.

For lack of a more inspiring pursuit, I spent that hour contemplating The Joy Of Cats while "Fluffy" and my wife slept peacefully at my side.

(Additional note: "Fluffy" is the soundest sleeper in the history of catdom. By personal observation I can attest to the fact that when she is deeply asleep her heart beats approximately once every three seconds. She is also completely limp [even when picked up and dropped onto the bed, which my wife did before waking me], and cold to the touch. So if you own such a sound-sleeping cat as "Fluffy," please be certain of your medical facts before you wake up your mate with an announcement guaranteed to cause said mate to suffer a massive cardiac infarction!)

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