Miss Goody was a member of our cat club and specialised in proper behaviour. Not for her were discussions on the more earthy habits of cats. When some breeders indelicately talked about the problems of mating their breeding cats a look of infinite gentility would waft over her face. "Excuse ME", Miss Goody would say, and with a faint flush suffusing her cheeks, remove herself from the area. We watched our p's and q's when we were around Miss Goody.

One year we had a fancy dress party at the cat club. I went as a witch (heehee). We all brought food and one of the men volunteered to make the non-alcoholic fruit punch. It was a wow of a party and surprisingly in the thick of it all was Miss Goody. She danced ferociously and swallowed glass after glass of the punch. "This is the best fruit punch I have ever tasted," she declared.

Someone started telling jokes, and others followed (they were mild jokes because of the fear of offending Miss Goody.)

"I've got a good one," bellowed Miss Goody out of the blue. She let out a loud cackle and began.

"There were these three pregnant cats, see, all sitting on the fence in the moonlight. One was a Siamese, one was a Persian and the other was an alley cat.

They began bragging about the fathers of their kittens. "The father of my kittens," sniffed the Siamese, "was an aristocrat from Siam. He was sired by the top cat in the royal household and my kittens' lineage is impeccable."

The Persian cast a haughty look at the Siamese. "The father of my kittens is a descendant of the ancient cats who served in the court of Persia,"and has a lineage any kitten would be proud of. He is the creme de la creme of cats.

The Siamese and the Persian cast their haughty stares on the alley cat. "And who is the father of your kittens?" they chorused.

The alley cat yawned. "Dunno, had my head in a rubbish bin at the time."

Miss Goody collapsed on a chair, red-faced and shrieking with laughter - shortly thereafter she passed out and later was escorted home. It seems the punch maker had added a bottle of vodka to the mix to liven up the party.

Copyright © Beverley Dunlop
January 31, 2002