I love my cat - I really, really do ... but to put it quite frankly she can be a bit thick at times. In fact, although I rarely subscribe to stereotypes or use them on other people, the most apt description I can apply to Ivory is 'blonde'. The blonde of the cat world, most definitely. I regularly thank God for protecting her until she arrived at the SPCA and I adopted her, and I'm certain she was a surrender or something of the sort because there is no way she could have survived in the wild on her own for more than a day. Hell, sometimes I have to point her in the direction of food and woe betide her tummy should she get distracted by something on the way there. (Moths are her downfall - she can be doing something, sleeping, eating, licking her bum or sitting on the litter box, but if a moth flies past whatever she was doing gets forgotten about and rarely gone back to).

That said, my darling Princess Ivory, Royal Cat and Beloved of the Goddess Bast, Pampered Puss and Mistress of all she surveys from the back of the brand new sofa (my cat is so pampered that the other day when it was hot I pointed the fan towards her instead of me!) does possess some measure of basic cat cunning. And thus we get the Tale of Two Breakfasts...

New Years Day is my birthday - of course, birthdays mean less than nothing to cats and obviously there was no chance that I would be allowed to sleep in. It's a distinct possibility that Ivory actually knew something was up, because she head butted me awake half an hour early and left me a beautiful present in the litter box. Unfortunately she hadn't 'giftwrapped' it, thus ensuring that if the early head butting didn't work, the stench would. Sure enough, I gave in to the inevitable and at half-past six in the morning on my twenty fourth birthday I was - you guessed it - covering my cat's business in the litter box (I draw the line at scooping at that hour because that involves a trip to the compost, and while I look ravishing in white flannel with pink roses, I prefer not to dazzle the rest of the neighbourhood). And, since I was up anyway, so the Princess' reasoning goes, I might as well feed the cat. So I did - a small tin of expensive turkey and venison cat food that she only gets now and then. Why Ivory was getting treats on my birthday is beyond me!

The great Kitty Appetite placated and the Princess Ivory having scratched on the Royal scratching box and retired to the royal throne to gaze disdainfully on the birds flying around the corner of the roof outside the window (Ivory's throne is the back of an armchair that sits in the corner where two windows join - she can see the birds nesting in the guttering and about three backyard's worth of cats) I was released from servitude long enough to dispose of my birthday presents (The Princess Ivory graciously bestowed upon me a small train set which I could set up and start barrelling around the track for her amusement and edification) and stumble back to bed, it being about seven am.

Having reached my billowy haven of bliss (it having become such because The Cat was absent and no longer demanding to play bed monster with my poorly protected calves - I can't convince Ivory that playing bed monster requires at least three layers of woollen blanket and is thus not a summer game. In fact I got out of bed the other morning and had to wipe the blood from scratch marks on my legs) I slumbered the sleep of the just and newly old for another two hours before getting up to aid my mother in the preparation of New Year's dinner.

Unbeknownst to me, however, while I was sleeping Ivory decided to employ a little cat cunning. Having disposed of the inferior offerings in her dish (Does anybody else set down a kitty version of a three course meal - reduced lactose milk, expensive wet food and dry food - and get a look from their cat that asks "What is this crap you're feeding me?") she discovered that my mother had arisen to start the turkey cooking. Ivory immediately starts mooching round Mom's legs, despite the fact that the only person in the house who feeds The Cat is me. Now my mother loves my cat as much as I do (in fact it was she who encouraged me to adopt one to circumnavigate my father's 'no more cats policy' - what beloved wife can't maneuver, precious baby girl usually can) and upon seeing Ivory's dish empty and me nowhere to be found, decided that I'd slept in and hadn't Fed The Cat! Caving in to her Royal Highnesses pitiful demands to be fed - so pitiful in fact that Ivory actually meowed despite the fact she NEVER meows! - soft-hearted Mom feeds the cat. Princess Ivory's cunning plan has worked - she has managed to illicit two breakfasts! And, thinks she, gotten away without anybody being any the wiser.

Unfortunately for kitty, her human slaves communicate. I got up and got dressed and go into the kitchen to discover Princess Ivory gobbling bits of New Year's ham being accidently dropped on the floor. Says I, upon spying her bowls still full (and believing it to be what I'd fed her) "Well, kitty food not good enough for you, Madam? You haven't eaten much of that!" Says kitty "Prrrp" translates: gobble gobble More ham please! Says my Mom "Oh, I just put that down for her a while ago." Says I "Whaddya mean you just put it down for her? I fed her at half six this morning!" Says Mom "But her dish was empty - I thought you hadn't fed her yet, so I washed her bowl and gave her some." Human slaves click what has happened (ya see Ivory usually takes an hour or so to finish her breakfast so there's usually food left in the dish when my Mom gets up)and look at cat accusingly. Cat looks back innocently "Prrrp - more ham please? Turkey too?" I get out the plastic food wrap and wrap up Ivory's second breakfast and turn it into her dinner. Ivory looks at me most offended that I've foiled her cleverness. Cat spends rest of the day huffy with me; I spend rest of day pretending to be huffy with Mom for accusing me of not feeding my darling piddy. Ivory gets her revenge by digging her claws into my boob early the next morning while chasing her tail - but that's another story!

Copyright © Maryrose Lockerbie