My Cat-ma Gandhi

It started out a quiet, dreary, rainy Saturday morning. One of those when you wake up -- relatively speaking -- reach over and draw aside the curtains, peer into the gloom, groan, then roll over and go back to sleep. Except you can't sleep because you know that if you do, you'll be awake until the wee hours tonight, so you drag yourself out of bed and stumble to the coffee pot.

You're in mid-pour when the cat leaps onto the counter and begins butting his head against you. Not content with a pet, he looks first at his bowl and then at you until you get the hint. Now comes the interesting part. You fill the bowl thinking he'll be happy, and walk away with coffee in one hand and a scone in the other. Five minutes later, you hear "whump" coming from the kitchen and on inspection, find the cat bowl face down on the floor, cat food neatly piled beneath it.

That's the scenario, more or less as it happened. So, I asked him, while sweeping up the detritus, first, why he did it and second, how did do it so precisely. That in itself is a trick I'd pay to see him repeat. Naturally, he just looked at me as if to say, "Do you really expect me to answer that?" Well, it would be nice. Yes, I could do with an explanation.

Now, you'd think he'd appreciate how I refilled his bowl and carefully placed it well back from the edge of the counter (I try to learn from my mistakes) and offer a word or two in kind, wouldn't you? No? Okay, you're either smarter or more awake than I was and probably both. So, maybe it's the weather; he doesn't like rainy days so why not protest by dumping his food on the floor? I suspect Gandhi would approve and as long as he doesn't do it again, it's fine with me.

But I'd still like to know just how he manages to do it without making a mess.


(Image via Wikipedia)