Dolly Rifles Through the Want Ads

I woke up early Tuesday morning only to find Dolly Gee Squeakers (formerly of the Humane Society Squeakers) already up and sitting at the little breakfast table, a cup of coffee in front of her, a lit cigarette’s smoke being coaxed out a window, Patsy Cline playing softly in the background.

That cat knows how I feel about her smoking in the house.

Dolly and I have an odd relationship: I feed her small, flavored treats so that I can laugh while she stands on her back legs and she, in return, hoicks hairballs into my boots.

I’m not sure it’s an evenly sided relationship, but so few are these days.

Have you met Dolly Gee Squeakers (formerly of the Humane Society Squeakers)? Dolly is a rather stunning long-haired Siamese mixture, a sparsely-toothed puddy tat with a penchant for lying flat on her back, limbs akimbo, looking, for all the world, like a warm and suspiciously unseaworthy canoe.

It’s a strange moment, catching your cat unawares. One delicate claw stirring the heavily creamed coffee, her brilliantly blue (and sometimes crossed) eyes staring off in the distance, I walked in as she was singing.

“I go out walking, after midnight…”

Well, except she wasn’t so much singing along as she was meow-meowing along. “Meow-meow mi-meow meow, meow-meow meow meow…” You’d probably have to be there, but really it’s quite disconcerting, catching a cat singing.

She stopped as I entered the kitchen, shifted the gaze that had been out the window to concentrate on the want ad section of the newspaper spread out before her.

“Mornin’,” I said.

Dolly raised her cup and nodded. She knows how I feel about early morning chatter, not to mention the fact that her lisp makes her self-conscious.

“Looking for a job?” I asked.

“Mmmmm,” she said.

“I’ll catch you later then,” I said. I was all the way to the front door before I heard what could only be a cat clearing her throat. At the bottom of the steps, I turned around and looked up.

Dolly was holding my lunch. “Meow meow meow,” she said, which I can only interpret at “You forgot your lunch”.

She tossed it down to me.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Don’t menthun it,” she said.