Exasperating Cat lives in hope that he can dig his way through a glass door.
Let me give some background.
We have a cat-flap, and a cat to go with it. We also have a rather engaging white-and-ginger Incursion Cat who is doing his doe-eyed best to get adopted. He's really cute and funny and if he actually got on with our cat - Alley, the Black Menace - I'd consider adopting him.
But they don't.
So we've taken to locking the cat-flap so entry is forbidden but exit is OK. This means that when Alley wants to come in, he travels round to the glass sliding-door in the lounge, stands on his back legs and starts digging at the door. This can be a bit unnerving when you're an insomniac as I am, and you're writing away quietly in the deep dark night; suddenly a pair of eyes like headlamps appear at the same time as nails shriek across the glass.
The thing is, Alley has taken to this game with gusto. He may not have opposable thumbs, but he's certainly mastered the art of making a human leap out of its chair and slide the door open for him; in my husband's case usually accompanied by "Oh, God, cat!" which may actually be the acknowledgement he's been waiting for.
His two most recent additions to the game involve - first - coyly hanging back before coming inside (which has caused said husband to commence his maths lessons - "Cat - I'm counting to three. One, two....bloody cat") and, more recently, the where-is-my-Honour-Guard manoeuvre. This involves standing at the recently-opened door and staring beguilingly up at the foolish human who opened it, requiring an escort to the location of his food.
Let me just point out here that the location of said food has not changed since we came to this house. It's in the scullery, just inside the door, on a pet mat, in a small white bowl. Right next to the water-dish.
But if you're in the middle of something else, like say trying to proof-read the material you've been writing through the deep, dark night, or wargaming (in the case of Honourable Son) or watching Rickie Fowlers' putt for eagle in the Masters (in the case of Beloved Daughter) or even ancient Egyptian worship ("Oh, God, cat!" in the case of Exasperated Husband) it's just easier and faster to get up and escort the little nuisance to his food bowl rather than watch his headlamps look at you accusingly while he purrs like a badly-tuned engine.
Hence the Honour Guard was born.
This was not enough fun.
We have a coffee-table in the middle of the lounge. Alley is not and has never been allowed on it. So his latest trick is to come hurtling back out of the scullery and land on it. Now, personally I'm inclined to cover the table with a nice smooth cotton mat (rather than its usual random scattering of books), because there is nothing funnier than watching a cat land gracefully on its bottom and then go skidding and shrieking off into space; but the rest of my family does not share my sadistic tendencies and also we probably don't want too many scratches on the table. Honourable Son glanced up the first time he did this, got up and pushed him off the table and went to open the glass door. I looked at him enquiringly and he said in a bored voice, "He just wants to go out again", and I realised those two had been doing a LOT of bonding in the deep dark wargaming nights.
Cat comes in, cat goes out. This was still not enough fun.
I've been waking at 4, and getting up to write rather than toss and turn. No sooner has the dim light in the lounge been switched on than the headlamps appear and nails shriek over the glass. I open the door, honour-guard God to the scullery, wait for him to finish eating, shove him off the table, and let him out again.
Twenty minutes later the performance gets repeated.
So far we are up to First Breakfast, Second Breakfast, Third Breakfast, and as we speak he is having Fourth Breakfast. Perhaps he is a hobbit. He does have hairy feet.
Unable to sleep, (possibly due to Rickie Fowlers' eagle putt), Beloved Daughter was up for Fourth Breakfast. As I wearily escorted God to his food dish she said, "Maybe we should move it around."
I looked at her enquiringly.
"Just to validate his belief that that's what happens when he isn't looking."
And that, folks, is how religions are born.
