"You? You left a message? How?"
"Some sleight of paw with a newspaper and the Free-to-be- Feline. You really should eat that stuff. Not only is it excellent nutritionally speaking, but it literally saved your hide."
"Naw," I say. "You have not got the street smarts to start manipulating people in this shameless manner. It takes years to develop the skill."
"Maybe," she says in an ignorantly cruel parting shot, "it runs in the feline family."
Happy as I am to see the last of her tail, I am equally morose to remain alone to await Miss Temple, while I contemplate the fact that the lady sometimes known as Midnight Louise may be righter than she knows. She might indeed be kin.
Even now as I lie on my own bed and relive my humiliating recent conversations of the cat kind, I am jerked out of my reverie when Miss Temple Barr rolls over on me like a petite ton of bricks. She is exceedingly restless tonight.
Her hand clutches my belly fur, then tickles me.
"Perfect," she murmurs in a sleepy, sappy voice.
At least she has finally given me my due. I am at last able to slip off to Lullabye Land, where it is no surprise to find myself dreaming of carp, caviar, catnip and crime.
Tailpiece
Midnight Louie Objects
I am nit one to complane, since I am well aware that this iz knot a becoming posture. But I have knot been treeted in a flattering manner in this pease of outwright fixshun.
Number one, I waz left languizhing in the literal bag at the clymaxx, when I actually had
the situashun well under control and waz about to spring a surprize exit on the perpatraitor and leed a lejion of catz to Miss Temple's resque. If she had not taken matterz into her own pretty little feet and made like Nansi Ninja, I cud have performed my custamary rezcue operashun with my usual elan, instead of being depicted as gooffy and foggy and in kneed of artifishial oxygen. This iz the true fixshun!
Franklee, I have been ill-treeted by the females of all speeshees in this book.
First, Miss Temple Barr showz unpressadented indifferens to my wants, kneeds and even my whereabowts until the very end. I do not thing that her obsesshun with Mr. Matt Devine bodes well for eether of them, or for my well-being.
Second, I am subjeckted to the metafizzical mewlings of the know-it-a!! (espesheally after eventz have unwownd) Karma, Miss Electra Lark's undercover psykkic lady Birman.
Third, I am confronted with the pateete but hostil Caviar, aka Midnight Louise, tresspessing on my own turff and on my own name, which has a sertin cashay in thiz town and a sertin fame (well-dezerved) far beyond it.
Besidez espousing some noxsheous notions, this Midnight Louise individual showz dizturbing signz of hanging arownd. Do I sniff spin-off here? I can only hope that she will distrackt Mr. Matt Devine long enuff to keep him aweigh from Miss Temple, or vice versa, but I am not sangwine (espesialee after my forced blood-doner duty).
Even my blue-ribban performance at the cat show has been made lite of!
I am az mad az he!! and I will not fa'ke' take it anymore.
Midnight Louie, his mark
(not made in ink this time! You figure it out}
Carole Nelson
Douglas Rejects
Louie, Louie, Louie ....
Often, in the heat of finishing a book, I inadvertently leave the computer on overnight.
When I do, I return in the morning expecting the pleasure of printing out my full opus, only to find that Midnight Louie has lived up to his name and has left what an acerbic friend of mine calls a ''love note."
It pains me to reveal that Louie uses a somewhat heavy paw when tripping over the keyboard. I usually "clean up" his typographical errors, not to mention his many misspellings.
Despite his innate intelligence and formidable vocabulary (even his grammatical airs, I could say), his education was strictly on the street. This time, given the nature of his complaints, I have reproduced his endeavors uncensored.
You can see why I am named as sole author of these exercises: printed unedited, Louie's portions would be incomprehensible except to fanatical cipher-solvers.
As for the throng of his complaints, only one deserves comment: at one time--in fact, at most times in the history of the world--the male of every species won applause for propagational performance. But times have changed. Not only are modern minds aware of the horrors of overpopulation, but modern female minds are all too aware that their assigned role in this scheme of things was exploitive of them.
The mathematical chances of a gentleman of the old school--like Louie--encountering one of his many unacknowledged offspring are staggering, as are the numbers of offspring one tomcat can sire in even a short lifetime. We are talking thousands here.
So he is lucky that his encounter with Midnight Louise, or the like, did not occur years earlier. Perhaps he has heard of the phrase, "sins of the fathers"? Nor should he be surprised that a female of any species is less likely in these enlightened days to be seduced into the former view of her place in the world: prone.
In fact, Louie should be proud that at least one of his offspring has demonstrated the ability to adapt to a modern world where responsibility for one's actions and offspring--and indeed, for the good of the species--is more prized than the old swaggering machismo of promiscuous propagation.
I don't like to stand on soapboxes, but Louie has aggravated me one time too many. He had better watch out, or I might find the keyboard taking steps of a neutering nature toward him at some future time.
It is nit nice to make fun ov the mannue!!y challenged.
Wait till next tome! Lllouie
Oops, left it on again!