Cat in the Tree

"Cat in the Tree"

One night while I was cat-sitting my daughter's
indoor feline, it escaped outside.

When it failed to return the following morning,
I found the beast clinging to a branch about 30
feet up in a spindly tree.

Unable to lure it down, I called the fire department.

"We don't do that anymore," the woman dispatcher said.

When I persisted, she was polite but firm. "The cat
will come down when it gets hungry enough."

"How do you know that?" I asked.

"Have you ever seen a cat skeleton in a tree?" she said.

Two hours later the cat was back, looking for breakfast.

******************************************

"Summer Thinking"

In the heat of summer, a fly was resting on
a leaf beside a lake.

A hot, dry fly who said to no one in particular,
"Gosh, if I go down three inches I will feel the
mist from the water and I will be refreshed."

There was a fish in the water thinking, "Gosh,
if that fly goes down three inches I can eat him."

There was a bear on the shore thinking, "Gosh,
if that fly goes down three inches...that fish will
jump for the fly and I will eat him."

It also happened that a hunter was further up the
bank of the lake preparing to eat a cheese
sandwich. "Gosh," he thought, "if that fly goes
down three inches, and that fish leaps for it, that
bear will expose himself and grab for the fish. I'll
shoot the bear and have a proper lunch."

You probably think this is enough activity for one
bank of a lake. But I can tell you there was more.

A wee mouse by the hunter's foot was thinking,
Gosh, if that fly goes down three inches, and
that fish jumps for that fly, and that bear grabs
for that fish, the dumb hunter will shoot the bear
and drop his cheese sandwich."

A cat lurking in the bushes took in this scene and
thought, as was fashionable to do on the banks
of this particular lake around lunch time.

"Gosh, if that fly goes down three inches, and that
fish jumps for that fly, and that bear grabs for that
fish, and that hunter shoots the bear, and that
mouse makes off with the cheese sandwich;
then I can have a mouse for lunch."
Received on Sat Apr 12 15:17:31 2008