Well, Rob got home a day late due to a typhoon (aka hurricane) that hit Japan the day he was supposed to be flying out. With the delayed flights, and those that were due to go out on the same day, conditions were chaotic, to say the least. He tried to get an earlier flight from Seattle to Fayetteville, NC, but there were over 100 people waiting for eight standby slots and a person who'd had a confirmed ticket arrived too late to get his flight and had to wait until the next one. So I picked him up late at night.

We got in and I fully expected a different reaction than what he got. Now, if I'm gone for so much as a day or so, the cats pout for days. Rob's longest hold out, Tanada, didn't pout about him coming back for even a day. The little turncoat was sitting on his lap the next morning. She stuck to him like glue, like a lover reunited after a long family feud. I now understand how Bev feels, it was sickening.

Merlin, who I expected to be aloof, fell in love with Rob from the moment he walked in the front door. It took me a couple of weeks to get Merlin to trust me enough to sleep in my lap. He was in Rob's lap as soon as he sat down. Merlin seems to have decided that he's another rescue that we've taken in and is welcoming him to the fold in every way possible.

I expected QC to be thrilled that he's home, but she's been clinging to me a little. She's decided that my side of the bed is hers however. I've had to kick her and Berfert off of it so that I can flop onto the mattress at night.

Berfert keeps staring at Rob as though he fully expects Rob to vanish into thin air. I suspect he's waiting for instructions from the mother ship as to how he's supposed to deal with Rob. He has been laying on me every chance he can get. I'm supposed to be taking it easy for a while, so Berfert gets a lot of chance to lay on my hip and stare in the general direction of Rob's face. I dunno, he looks like he needs glasses or something, there's something unfocused about his stare which should put any self respecting cat slave off, but Rob seems to be able to ignore it.

So like the Pied Piper, Rob rambles around the house followed by his kitty escorts. They've inspected every bit of his luggage they could get to, stared at him to their little kitty hearts' content, shoved me off of the bed, drooled on him, crawled under the covers with him and shared his meals. They're even starting to line up to go to the bathroom with him. I think I've been jilted.

Copyright © Pam Shirk
September 16, 2000