Extinguishing the cat.

You’re whiling away your sunday evening, reading Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy aloud, snuggled up on the couch. Your cat “Melchie”, has grown tired of perching on CPwr’s knees and starts walking on the furniture…

She does this a lot. *A lot*. We’re having dinner, and suddenly we notice there is a cat curled up behind the pepper mill (she’s stealthy). The thing is, Melchie is also a klutz. She’ll roll over to show you her belly, only to fall off the couch. So in addition to getting her off the table, you’re also making sure no wine glasses or salad bowls get knocked off in the process.

This evening, Melchie has been behaving herself, curled up on a sweater on the armchair opposite us. Then she decides to go for a little stroll across the side table. Where we have a candle – a lit candle. Holding our collective breaths and thinking “Could she be that stupid?”, we watch in shock/horror, as she swishes her tail through the flame. As she jumps down, her poor mummy (me) sees that there is a spark on her tail! My kitty’s on fire!

Well, not *on fire*, the spark went out as she wooshed through the air to the ground, but good lord! I jump up, go into the kitchen and soak my hands to wet down her tail – which is still hot by the way. And now has a big clump of beeswax in it. But did my precious little kitty care about any of this? Nope. She was more excited that she had got me into the kitchen and started in on the “feed me” noises – walking back and forth between the cupboard and her dish. It’s like ‘dumbass, you were just on fire! see this wax on your butt, THAT’S NOT NORMAL.’

Good lord indeed.