Picture it....

In my kitchen, there's a catflap in the door between the kitchen and the utility room. The cat food, water bowls, etc. are all in the utility room. The cats have unlimited access to and fro via the catflap. Problem, one door, one cat flap, three cats. It's showdown time.

Waffles, Queen Of All She Surveys, Annie Oakley Is A Wimp Compared To This Feline, is guarding the catflap on the kitchen side. On the other side is Francis, Really I'll Go Quietly Just Don't Hurt Me, Wimp Of The Century.

The sound of "The good the bad and the ugly" is in the air. It's the OK catflap stand-off.

It's claws drawn at ten paces...

Francis put one paw through the cat flap. Mistake. Big mistake.

Waffles immediately drew all claws, all glinting like polished razors in the light. Fangs bared. Waffles immediately fluffed up to three times her size, with the fur on her spine sticking up vertically from her back, and all the fur on her tail sticking out, so she resembled a demented bottle brush.

Marble came running out from under the kitchen table, wearing an undertaker's hat and carrying a tape measure. he zoomed through the cat flap and measured up Francis for a coffin in less than ten seconds. Marble then zoomed back through the cat flap, nodding to Waffles as he went by and began to build a Francis sized coffin under the kitchen table. Funnily enough it bore a strange resemblance to those wooden pencil cases so beloved of woodwork teachers in the 1970's...

The western music grew louder. Francis put his head through the cat flap. Even bigger mistake. Waffles pounced, all claws and fangs in deadly co-ordination. Poor Francis - he lived, but he is minus a few whiskers and he looks a tad dishevelled.

Waffles blew the smoke from the end of her claws and wandered off into the sunset of the living room to take pride of place curled up on *the* warm spot under the radiator.

Tuff Girl Cats rool, Wimpy Boy Cats drool.

Copyright © Helen Simmons
March 9, 2001