Stealth Cat

I am a creature of great stealth and guile. See?

Here I am stealthily and guilefully hidden in the foliage. Can you even see me there? Look really closely . . . Ha! Kind of jumps out at you, doesn't it?

Stealth runs in my family lineage. I know this because, since I was abandoned in a ditch when I was itty bitty, I get to pick what my family lineage was (this is how that works, you understand), and I decided that I come from a long line of jaguars, going all the way back to the darkest, most remotest jungles of the Amazon.

There can be no doubt, can there? One look at me, and you see Jungle Cat written all over.

"Rawr."

Stealth comes in handy when one is aspiring for household domination and must deal with unruly humans on a daily basis. Specifically, this unruly human:

It's like she thinks I like her or something.

Obviously, she must be put in her place. And the other day, that's just where I put her.

I had to be quite stealthy about it all. You see, Anne Elisabeth (for some reason) doesn't trust me as implicitly as she might. Sometimes, she'll catch me just looking at a vase of flowers from across the room, and she'll say, "MINERVA LOUISE!" in that special tone of voice that means me. It's a little unjust.

I'll knock the vase over five minutes later just to show her.

So the other evening, I watched from across the kitchen as Anne Elisabeth sat drinking tea as she always does when Rohan first comes home (This is how wretched she is: First, she chases Rohan out of the house all day then, as soon as he gets home, she puts him to work making tea! You see how it is? You see what I have to live with?). She was writing up a shopping list as she did so and talking to my sweetest-angel-face-of-love Rohan. She wrote with a green pen.

The green pen.

The beautiful, O! so beautiful green pen. Her favorite pen.

I like her favorite pen a lot. Basically, I like any pen that she is using, but especially the green one. And she was writing with it and talking at Rohan, and I watched, and I had an idea.

So I stealth-catted across the room. I did this by flicking my glorious plume of a tail and saying, "Meeew?" in the sweetest possible tones. Stealth, you see, can mean many things. Sometimes, it's hiding and sneaking. Sometimes, it's deflecting attention. I am an expert at all kinds of stealth.

I rubbed around her ankles. "Meeeew? Meeeew?" I said again, blinking and batting my long lashes at her. Anne Elisabeth stopped writing. She put her teacup down and set aside the beautiful green pen. "Oh, what a sweetness you are!" she exclaimed as she reached down and petted me.

It was going well. I decided to push it to the next level. I hopped in her lap, purr-purr-purring all the way.

"My goodness!" Anne Elisabeth exclaimed, petting me and scratching under my chin. "Aren't we just a little luv-muffin? Are you seeing this Rohan? She never hops into my lap! Only yours!"

After all, who would hop into Anne Elisabeth's lap when Rohan's is available?

"I told you she's a good kitty," Rohan said. "You always say such wretched things about her, but she's such a sweetie!"

Dear, sweet Rohan.

I purred, I flicked my tail, I blinked. Anne Elisabeth petted, cooed, and exclaimed. And then, the moment was right.

With dart of my paw, I snatched the green pen from the table, knocked it to the floor, and leaped after it, sending it rolling. Before Anne Elisabeth had the chance to even begin her ever-predictable, "MINERVA LOUISE!" I had batted that green pen across the kitchen and underneath the dishwasher out of reach!

Oh, yes. I am that good.

Of course, Rohan, brow-beaten man that he is, got down on his hands and knees with a hanger to fetch it out again. But the point was well and truly made, so that wasn't so bad. And when Rohan, having finished catering to Anne Elisabeth's wretchedness, sat down at the table himself, I hopped into his lap and purred the purr of the victorious. He scratched me behind the ears the way I like and said, "Good kitty."

I like him.

So the struggle for Rooglewood Supremacy continues. But I believe I made a fine strike on the side of feline dictatorships everywhere! One day, all the pens will be mine . . .