Burning Bridges And Britches

I'll let you in on a funny story with a good moral if you promise not to "let the cat out of the bag." Deal?

Regular readers well know our travails with the feline species. Though the two who rule our abode at present are rather low maintenance, they certainly impose demands. Brudderman, for instance, insists a trip outdoors about 3:00 a.m. each morning. And he usually announces, "It's time," by an increasingly persistent--both in volume and urgency--and protracted cry. Normally a lighter sleeper than my wife, I usually silence his alarm by doing what he asks.

Earlier in the week, however, this mundane nocturnal ritual took a peculiar twist.

In a deep sleep, I sensed, but didn't really hear, Brudderman's initial "let me out the door" announcement: "M-e-r-r-o-w-w." As is typical for round one, his voice merely penetrated my subconscious without bringing me fully to the surface. Conditioned, I'm sure, by his occasional practice of ceasing after a time or two, I didn't respond.

In due time, however, the second cry came--a bit louder and longer from somewhere beyond the foot of the bed. "M-e-r-r-r-r-o-w-w." Won't be long now, my mind told me.

"M-e-r-r-o-w-w." A third cry, even more plaintive, quickly followed. But this one emanated from the right, close to my ear and with a slight change of pitch. Had Brudderman moved?

"M-e-r-r-r-o-w-w." Again from the right with heightened insistence. Then silence.

Finally, from the foot of the bed, the grand finale: "M-e-r-r-r-r-r-o-o-w-w-w-w." When children cry, parents generally know when it's actually time to act. No different with cats in the night, so I groggily lumbered to the door.

But on my slow shuffle back to bed, a niggling thought whispered that those peculiar cat cries from the right side of the bed didn't sound "Brudderish" enough. But if Brudderman hadn't made them, then who....

Ensconced again under the covers, I decided to test a rapidly developing theory on the soundly sleeping (maybe too soundly) wife just to my right. I quietly turned toward her, and… "M-e-r-r-o-w-w."

You'd have thought I had poked her with a hot iron. "Why did you do that? Why did you make that sound?" she haughtily demanded--but in an embarrassed sort of tone. Truly impressed by how quickly she had bolted from the deepest slumber to respond in a fully alert and wide-awake voice, I boldly pressed my theory to the limits: "Liar, liar! Pants on fire!"

I'd guess it took 30 seconds for the redness to leave the face I couldn't see. "What do you mean by that?" Her righteous query rang with the hollow tone of feigned innocence.

It had been only a guess in the beginning--a long shot--that paid off. My coup-de-grace: "I can smell your britches burning from here!"

Not another peep came from either side of the bed for the rest of the night.

Burning bridges--or britches--for purely personal benefit may produce "catastrophic" consequences.

Copyright 2003 James McAlister

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