I am horrified to find out that my apartment is occupied by greeblings. I had thought Tony was doing his job with them and now I find out he was skating by on his laurels. In his prime, there were no greeblings allowed to enter the dwelling without his jumping on them and beating them to death. I had thought the greeblings had finally learned not to come here. Oh woe is me.

The horrid truth came out when I adopted a strawberry blond colored kitten this last weekend. He is 12 weeks old and named George and cute as the dickens. And he has been finding greeblings everywhere. They are even in my *bed* where I thought surely I was safe because Tony spends so much time there. I awoke this morning to greeblings being attacked near my toes. But George has found them up by my head and everywhere in the apartment. I had no idea my apartment was so infested. I am just glad I got a kitten for greebling duty before I came to permanent harm.

As is expected, Tony was not happy for me to bring George into the apartment because he realized I would find out how poorly he had been defending the place against greeblings. He growled at the interloper and would not allow him on the bed to begin with - how could he know what I would do if I found he wasn't even protecting the bed? In fact, for the first 24 hours, he wouldn't even look at me he was so ashamed. However, Tony has begun to realize the errors of his ways and is starting to protect the place from greeblings again. He has figured out it is best to team up with the kitten to get them and show him how it really should be done. He isn't as exuberant about catching greeblings as the kitten is, but one can only expect that. He is after all 8 years old and middle aged.

For what it's worth, I think the reason we all get kitten fever is a protection mechanism against greeblings getting into the dwelling. As our cats get older, they let us think the population is under control when it really isn't. So, when you start to get kitten fever, it is probably time to wonder if you are really very safe from greeblings.

Copyright © Bridget Baker
February 14, 2002