To everyone reading this, I want to thank you all. If I don’t post next week it’s because my cat has sent me to the great somewhere. No, not to Wal-Mart for more food. I’m trying to say that my cat is trying to assonate me. She figured out, just how allergic I am to her, and has taken to following me around just to see me scratch. Sometimes she’ll do this for me but it takes on a rather more painful and bloody aspect, I’d rather not talk about without antiseptic.

 She taunts me at night as well. As I lie there trying to sleep. She positions herself just at the door so her yellow eyes glow brightly green. It’s enough to scare the snooky out of you. Please don’t ask what snooky is, you don’t want to know.

Capn’ Blood is spotted like a leopard and has decided to become one. Her killer instinct has locked into me, as her next victim. I just wish she would slash me with those sixteen needles we call claws and get it over with. She could also clamp her jaws on my throat like African leopards do. But no, she has decided to go for a more subtle slow approach and make me suffer. What did I ever do to her, to deserve this?

The thing is she virtually ignores the rest of my family. Oh, they can hold her and she plays when they want, but the moment I want to sit and write she get it into her head she’s being ignored, which she is, and jumps up on the keyboard to be with me. Why? I don’t know. I undoubtedly don’t want to be with her at that moment. Certainly not without an emergency allergy pen.

This is an interesting phenomenon, I call WPIE; That’s Worst Pet Instinct Ever. WPIE is the fact that a pet, any pet, will instinctively know which person in a room is allergic to it and start hanging around with that person. It also knows which person fears or hates it and will act accordingly by leering at the fearing person and staying just out of reach of the hating person. Why do they do this? There could be seventeen old cat ladies and one allergic woman in a room. The cat will ignore all the fawning women and jump on the lap of the allergic one. I can’t figure out how they know.

I will say doctors use this ability in hospitals to great success. I’ve often heard that when a doctor wants to find out something special about a patient, they ask for a Cat Scan. They do something similar with dogs but it’s more specific. It’s called a Lab Report. No, I’ve never heard of a Dachshund Report so don’t ask.

The thing is, cats and dogs are both killers and we invited them into our houses thousands of years ago. All dogs are distantly related to wolves, which hunt in packs. The odd thing is once we get a dog, we don’t let it be by itself and therefore be safe. Nope! According to the supreme They, most families get more than one dog and thus give them a pack to hunt in. Then they wonder what happened to the turkey which was left on the table. Survival of the fittest still rules. Why did we domesticate these creatures?

I wish I was around when that deal was being made. Can’t you just see a large mahogany table with wolves on one side and men on the other? Not being a speaker of Wolf I’m not sure what they thought, but I know what the men were saying: “Okay Wolves, listen up. You have better senses than us and are much better hunters, so here’s deal. We going to tie piece of leather round your neck and strangle you every time you get out of line. You get to do all work in hunting down animals. Once they caught, we will eat all good parts and feed you meat flavored rock, called kibble.”

About this time, I’m sure the wolves were getting a bit upset so they brought up thing like being inside caves and fire. “Yes, we got those things, but we thinking we tie you to stake, and leave outside to scare neighbors.” I’m convinced this made the wolves mad, and they must have been baring their teeth. It had to be pretty darn frightening. Then suddenly a human negotiator, with glasses, named Og, jumped up and said, “Don’t forget, we also rub your bellies!” Well, that did it. Papers were signed, bones, and water bowls were passed around, to both sides. Folks were pretty crude back then.

They further say, cats are the most successful killers on the planet, and were never domesticated. They never negotiated their service, or signed any of the papers. They just took over. As I get it, men planted crops and rats showed up to eat them. Cats showed up to eat the rats. Then one day a Kaffir Cat from Africa said, “Meow” which roughly translates to, “To heck with this,” walked into the house, plopped down on the best cushion, and screamed, “Feed Me!” The men were scared of the killer cat and fed him. The rest is history.

All this history is great and all. Perhaps if I survive my house pet, I’ll write a book, but I am still in fear for my life. In fact, if it wasn’t for my very odd, older sister, I’d be dead already. She at least gave me a brief respite from Capn’ Blood’s murderous marauding’s. You see she has several animals she calls pets. Honestly, they all pretty much take care of themselves because snakes, spiders, and birds can be fed and left alone for a little while. Her cats live outside and will find food if necessary and the pond fish will likely be eaten by a heron so either way she’ll end up having to get more. Mr. Henderson is the exception to all this.

Mr. H is a de-scented skunk. He can’t be left alone because his natural defense is gone. Therefore, when she went to go commune with the chipmunks in the woods, I ended up skunk sitting. I didn’t want to skunk sit, but my children love Mr. H and wouldn’t let me not. I have truly lost control of my home.

Anyway, I brought the skunk in, and the world changed. Capn’ B took one look at his white stripe and took off. She will not associate with this usurper. Remembering I don’t like Mr. H any more or less than Capn’ B, the skunk has adopted me as well. Now, the killer cat won’t come near. This is great because a skunk can’t jump up on a table and disturb my writing. So, for a moment all is right with the world.

The problem is, I have to give the skunk back, and I’m sure there’s going to be hell to pay from my little clawed fiend. So, if you don’t hear from me, it’s been nice.