Mouse & Mrs Mouse are Taught By "Our Cat"

Milady does not trust the animal we refer to as “our cat.” She’s convinced that, if the beast were left alone to roam the house while we were away, she would scratch the soft leather of the couch that lends itself to my “potato being.” So, when we are away for a matter of a few hours or so, we restrict “our cat” to the less vulnerable areas of the house. This is not so bad, “cat” tells me in boastfully mewling tones: “Stone walls do not a prison make,” and I wonder how she got access to the very scratchable contents of the poetry shelf. (but am afraid to ask). “It’s not the confinement,” she adds. “It’s that you lock me in with an abundant supply of my most irresistible temptation, food.”

Yes, well, I see. Milady does indeed – perhaps out of a sense of guilt – leave a heaping bowl of very healthy cat food in the cat’s prison, more than “cat” should eat and certainly more than she needs. She’s on diet, you see, one she herself prescribed. She and her personal handler – the local vet – had a discussion last month about the condition of her waistline. Cat came home and instructed us to prepare a menu tuned to her svelte ambitions. (Yes, instructed. Dog’s may have masters, but cats have staff.) “Two quarter cup scoops of Meow Mix per day, and not a penny’s worth more,” she demanded with the firmness of one wholly committed to the better life.

Then she proceeded to lecture us: “That fellow you’re oft times quoting, E. F. I think it is Schumacher. He said it and you are not to forget it. ‘Cat’s are far too clever to be able to survive without wisdom.’ But as Oscar Wilde said, ‘I can resist anything, except a temptation,' so you are to make sure you leave nothing in my path that can lure me from the solitary walks of my regime.”

“Our cat” reads altogether too much. But I’ll give her this much, she may have misquoted Schumacher – he said “men,” not “cats” – but she certainly knows the difference between cleverness and wisdom. I’m sure that if “our cat” wanted to she could find and break into the supply of Meow Mix wherever we put it. She’s that clever. But she’s wise enough that she knows not to, so long as it’s not left right out there in the open, presenting an irresistible temptation. “It’s not power that corrupts, it’s opportunity,” cat concluded. “Leave money right out on the table and even the most sniveling and emaciated politician will grab it.”

This past Saturday, milady and I went to a political party convention, occasioning us to confine “our cat” to her cell. And as I said, milady left more than an ample supply of sustenance for cat’s survival, and sure enough, when we got home, the “sustenance” had all been put to use, in the belly of our burgeoning cat. She stood there on her all-fours staring with accusing eyes at those who had led her into temptation’s path. Milady scolded the cat, I scolded milady, and the world went about its perfect, all too perfect way, cleverly demonstrating the wisdom of that immortal chimpanzee Mark Twain once quoted: “God invented the monkey because he was disappointed in Man.”