I find that you can teach an old cat new tricks so to speak. She develops more and more habit patterns every day, it seems, and involves herself in very special activities.

There's a ritual about going to bed at night. When she was very little, I'd put her down in the rec room at night and close the door. I'd let her "bump" down the stairs (the sound of kitten feet bumping down stairs at a run. And I'd tell her "go bump-bump-bump" as she went.

Older now, the ritual still holds, although she doesn't go nearly as fast ... but the bump-bump-bump is still a part of it. Now she sits and looks at me and hollers unless I tell her those three words. That means it's time to go to bed. She doesn't feel all of the ritual has been properly followed without it.

I wonder what goes on in that little cat brain.

Copyright © Frank Pierce
February 21, 2001

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