Otis could drive you nuts. I keep thinking how lucky he is that I'm his mom. Most people would have taken him back after a fraction of what he’s put us through.

Every single night as I'm nursing baby Samuel to sleep, when Sammy is just about to drop off into baby dreamland and I am gazing with love at his beautiful little face, the spell is shattered by Otis. Otis settles in for a good long song outside of Sam’s door. He sounds like my Russian friends do after downing an entire bottle of vodka. So mournful that you feel the pain of generations in his song, your eyes mist over, and you feel irresistible urge for a shot of vodka too. “Mrrrrraowwwww, Brrrraow, brrrrrrrr, brrrrrrrrrrr, yaaooowwwwwwwwww”, he intones, with all matter of desperate inflection and feeling.

I think that a loose translation would go something like: “I'm a poor starving kitty who has been all alone in the world since mommy went behind the closed door five minutes ago. Mommy, don't leave me! Nobody loves me. Please tell me that I haven't been abandoned. And oh, do you have something to eat?”

Whatever. It’s irritating. It wakes up the baby. It’s amazing that that kid ever gets to sleep. It’s the timing that has me really floored. How can he do it just at the critical moment every single night?

It reminds me of a joke, adapted for his highness:

Q: How many Otis’ does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: One, since the world revolves around him.

Copyright © Susan Mawdsley
January 31, 2001