“Hey, Mom! I saw a picture on your computer of a pootie all wrapped up in some brown stuff. Can we have some of that to play with? It looks like really would be fun.”
“That brown stuff is called tape. It was supposed to be rolled up in what is called a cassette. We don’t have any of those around here anymore. Sorry to disappoint you.”
Kiki walked over. “Do you have any stories about us from when we were little kittens?”
“Sure, Kiki. You did lots of fun things when you first came to live with us. So did the other kittens who shared our lives before you came.”
“I’ll bet we were frisky and cute, huh?”
“Yes, and you were much tinier than you are now. You were small enough to sit in Ginnycat’s hands.”
“Hey, Allen, come look at this picture. I’ll bet you were never that tiny and cute.”
“Hahaha, you’re wrong, Kiki. I was in the same litter as you. We were little babies together. Mom told me.”
“All of you loved to tear around in the middle of the night. One of the kittens who lived here, long before you were born, especially loved to jump. She would leap straight up in the air and catch flies when they got in the house.”
“Wow! She must have been pretty talented. Remember those flies that we had in here a few weeks ago? Mom, you remember, the ones you were yelling at? Well, I tried to catch one of them, but it got away from me. It had wings and flew away. I don’t think it is fair that flies have wings.”
“That kitty also liked to leap down the steps. One of my friends commented that my pootie didn’t know how to walk down the steps. Instead, she flew.”
“Did we have wings when we were little, like a bird? What happened to my wings?”
“No, baby kitties don’t have wings. They just jump and seem like they are flying through the air without them.”
“What else did I do?”
“Here’s a little poem about one thing you loved to do, and what we learned from it.”
A DAY TO NOTE
I suppose
it was a milestone
of a sort
The kitten
had grown long enough
to stand on his hind legs
and reach the toilet paper
With great delight and no doubt purring
he pawed the entire roll onto the floor
carefully decorating each sheet
with claw holes and massive rips
When done
the big pile of white stuff
must have seemed custom-made
for a frolic
By the time I arrived
the entire bathroom
looked like a huge explosion
of white stuff
Curled up
in the middle
was an exhausted
sleeping kitten
That was the day
we agreed
to roll the toilet paper
the other way
“That sure sounds like a lot of fun. I wonder why I haven’t tried that lately.”
“Perhaps it’s because we now always put the paper on the spindle so that it doesn’t unroll when pooties decide they want to play with it.”
“How come we don’t have pretty green toilet paper like that in our house?”
“It would be pretty, but it’s not good for the earth. The dye that makes the paper a nice color unfortunately gets into the water supply and it kills the fish.”
Kiki: “Hmmm…fish. Maybe we should go and see some fish sometime.”
“Mom, sometimes you leave a roll of paper towels lying on the floor for me. I’ve played with that. I like to hold it like it’s prey, and kick it with my back feet. Now that is fun.”
“Ummm, yes, I have noticed that. I am slowly learning not to leave rolls of paper towels sitting on the floor where certain critters can knock them over and shred them.”
“Allen and Kiki, let’s say goodbye to our friends. We hope you all have a great week.”