Incident on a fence

Being too late in the cycle to write about Rev. Sinkford's impression of Neville Chamberlain, I've decided to write about an incident I witnessed Tuesday afternoon. There would be nothing I could add to the Ahmadinejad story except to agree with everything Peacebang, CC, Bill Barr, and Scott Wells said with only one exception: Peacebang, I don't care how old Religions for Peace is; they are indeed a fly-by-night organization. That's what Moon-bats do- they fly by night.

Anyway, I was on the back porch Tuesday afternoon, and saw our cat Garfunkle slinking through the grass in the neighbor's yard. To appreciate this story, you have to understand just how big this cat is. here is a picture of him filling a leather chair- an oversize leather chair my 400 lb. butt fits in comfortably. His paws, at full extension, cover the palm of my hand.

The yard he was slinking around in is surrounded by a shoulder-high wooden fence they put up to keep their dogs in. My cats approved highly of this action; it kept the dogs out of their yard, and, of course, was no impediment to them at all. Impediment? To them, it is a long runway they can strut on.

So Garfunkle was inside this fenced yard, in serious stalk mode. I didn't see anything on the ground to stalk, but then I saw Garfunkle look up and followed his eyes- there was a squirrel on the fence, munching on something, oblivious to the world. More importantly, oblivious to Garfunkle. It bent over to grab something else, his round butt and tail straight up making a fuzzy exclamation point. In a single leap, so powerful and graceful it looked like water flowing uphill, Garfunkle flew to the top of the fence- and tagged the squirrel's exposed behind.

The squirrel streaked across the fence to the corner post and then turned and faced Garfunkle, chattering angrily at him- the foulest language I've ever heard from a squirrel. Garfunkle didn't hiss, he didn't arch, he simply stretched, that long kitty stretch that looks like a yoga exercise, ending with his arms at full reach and butt in the air... then spread those enormous paws and sharpened his claws on the fence, little curls of wood peeling up in the furrows.

The squirrel froze in mid-chatter. I must have blinked, for the squirrel simply vanished- he moved so fast that I didn't even catch a blur of motion in the corner of my eye. Garfunkle settled from the yoga position into a regal Sphinx pose.

Now, veterinarians keep telling me not to anthropomorphize; cats don't have the same emotions and motivations we do. But what could that have been but a practical joke? If he had wanted that squirrel dead, it would have been dead- I've seen Garfunkle tear up invading tomcats twice the size of that squirrel, and they hadn't been taken by surprise. He wasn't defending turf or mate. He simply couldn't resist the inviting target, the big round butt displayed to the world. With a little touch of, "That's right, I'm bad", of course.