It had been a hard day's night for Gizzi. As a matter of fact, it had been a hard week!

As some of you may remember, Gizzi joined my household as a carefree, uptown type who had never in his short life found anything he should fear. He delighted in chasing my middle-aged ladies, and loved it when they screamed and ran from him.

He was the self-appointed king of the house, and neither knew nor cared that prior to his arrival, Baby had been the Cat in Charge.

His reign of terror went on until the day that Baby had finally had enough. This time, when he charged up to chase her, Baby whipped around and WAPPED! him sideways! That was hard enough to take, but the next day Bon Bon did the same thing. I guess she saw that it worked when Baby did it!

Gizzi spent a couple of days hiding in his closet, wondering just what had happened. When he did venture out, it was one fat paw at a time. He peered around corners and was ready to leap on anything high whenever he saw or heard Baby!

If she entered a room where he was curled up to sleep, he immediately assumed the "kill me now" position. He growled a low rumble, but it just didn't work. If Baby felt like it, she gave him a hard time, i.e., a few minutes of stark terror.

Several weeks ago, Gizzi was sound asleep on top of my TV set, head on the VCR and one paw draped across the WebTV box. I was in the kitchen, so I wasn't aware of the fact that Baby had soft-pawed it into the room, found him and was going in for the kill.

I heard the commotion, the hissing and spitting and shrieking, and I heard the crash. "Oh. no," I thought, "there goes my lamp!" But when I rushed into the room, it wasn't the lamp I found on the floor -- it was the VCR, the WebTV box, and a quivering, terrified Gizzi!

Baby was blissfully beginning her evening "toilette." Gizzi gave me a look that plainly said, "But you haven't heard my side of it yet!" Maybe not, but I had seen enough. My Webbie, my link to the outside world, my companion through sleepless nights, was down for the count -- and I was devastated!

I had to wait for my clever son to come visit and get me on-line again. And that, friends, explains where I have been lately. I have been holding Gizzi so that he can sleep undisturbed, while I have been wondering what is going on with my friends across the country and around the world! Life goes on, though, and cats just make it that much more interesting!

Copyright © Renee Darvin
November 1, 2000