to. Tuxedo now stood glaring at me in the middle of the room impatiently waiting for me to get up and start the day. These damn cats are a curious breed, they love the status quo, their own way, and their routine. They deplore any change or deviation from their normal schedule. The cat in his own way actually reminded me of myself, more than I cared to admit. How else could I explain putting up with him all these years. In all fairness to the cat, there was no reason to be upset with him, he was just being himself. Tuxedo always got up at this ungodly hour, I just wasn’t part of his routine nor did I have any great desire to become part of it. My wife, Kathy, was the family member assigned to this particular morning rite of passage. The cat, to his credit, had always preferred my wife to me, but then again who didn’t? The entire family, my own sister included had long since sided with Tuxedo against me.
Unfortunately for both Tuxedo and myself, Kathy had left the previous night with several of her girl friends for a long weekend at our get away house in the Poconos. The girl’s called this semi annual event Woman’s only Weekend’. I didn’t resent my wife taking this time off to be with her friends she deserved it. Right now I had only two regrets. The first being that Kathy wasn’t here to tend to the cat and the second was that Tuxedo couldn’t tell time.
As I slowly navigated my way out of bed, I put on my slippers and robe. The cat raced ahead and waited for me on the top step of the stairs. I could sense his disappointment and annoyance as I stopped off at the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth. I stretched out this morning ritual just to annoy him. I know it was childish of me but the subtle payback was not wasted on the cat. Eventually I joined him on the stairs and we made our way down the steps to the living room, through the dining room, and ultimately to the kitchen. I rolled back the sliding glass door and the cat darted out onto the back deck, ready to conquer the world. I knew from experience that the cat would now spend the next fifteen minutes patrolling the grounds hoping to find some poor helpless creature that he could torment.
I then hustled back up stairs and changed in the allotted time that the demanding cat so generously allowed. Once that chore was completed, I returned to the back door fully expecting to see Tuxedo perched on the back deck eagerly waiting to be fed. Much to my surprise he wasn’t there. Perhaps he was breaking from his routine, but more than likely, he was laying in wait for some unsuspecting cat, bird or squirrel. No matter, at the moment I had my own problem to sort out. Dare I try to make a pot of coffee or should I take the easy way out and walk across the road to Bagel Masters for my morning brew. It really wasn’t that momentous a decision. I opted for Bagel Masters.
It was about 5:50 a.m. and Bagel Masters didn’t officially open until 6:00 a.m. A lot of people in today’s society don’t like to break from the official hours of operations, but luckily Carmine and Margaret, the proprietors, had no such hang up. They figured they were there, the coffee was hot, the door was open, so why not help out a poor soul in dire need of his morning caffeine fix. As I strolled over to my favorite local coffee house, I fired up my pipe. I had been trying hard to quit of late, perhaps a little too late, since I had been smoking for the past thirty years. But as they say, better late than never. For the past several weeks, I had regimented myself to having one smoke in the morning, one at high noon and one after dinner.
In my own mind I had rationalized that would somehow be more acceptable than smoking heavily throughout the day. One of course could ask the logical question, ‘How could anyone think rationally about smoking? Any fool knows it’s bad for you at best and fatal at worst.’ But that was a philosophical debate for another time, right now I desperately needed my morning coffee.
As I entered through the door, I put aside my philosophical meanderings. I walked over to the coffee urn and drew a large cup of the high octane.
“Good morning, Fred,” Carmine bellowed from behind the counter.
“Good morning Carmine, Margaret,” I replied. Margaret just nodded. Carmine then engaged me in a conversation about fly-fishing on the Delaware while Margaret continued preparing for the daily onslaught of humanity. Then again, that onslaught of humanity was their customer base and those customers did pay the bills, so in effect Margaret was doing what had to be done. Carmine, however, felt no such moral imperative as he continued the conversation.
From the corner of my eye, I noticed a large heavy set, queen sized woman entering the establishment with a cell phone in her right hand. She was dressed in a blue sweat suit, with white sneakers. Although most people either jog or work out in this mode of dress, this was most definitely not the case with this woman. The sweat suit was for purely cosmetic reasons; its job was to hide her body. I was sure that in warmer months she was perfectly capable of wearing a sack dress or a muu muu. Half of my brain was now engaged in the conversation with Carmine while the other half was meandering about the physicality of this woman.
The woman got her cup of coffee and then waddled up to the counter where she ordered a veggie bagel. Margaret dutifully took the order and asked the woman if she wanted anything on it. The waddler then asked for low fat cream cheese, like that was really going to help her with her obesity. The waddler then turned her attention to me. With her nose curled up, nostrils flaring, and a disdainful look in her eye; she proceeded to address me in a most distasteful manner.
“SIR, Your not supposed to be smoking in this store. Don’t you realize, the dangers of second hand smoke, not to mention how offensive it is to a non smoker such as myself?”
I shot back immediately, “Madam, what in the hell are you complaining about, it’s killing me.”
Carmine and Margaret just smiled and I left quickly on a high note, stopping only to pick up the local paper from the vending machine outside the door.
I walked the one hundred paces back across the street to my house, opened the gate, proceeded up the walkway and then up the front porch steps. All of a sudden, before I could open the door, I heard a loud commotion on the side of the house. I hustled down the steps and ran to the source of the conflict. It was my cat, Tuxedo, squared off with a raccoon twice his size. As I raced towards the two combatants, the cat’s attention was diverted to me. In a split second, the raccoon lashed out and swatted Tuxedo, sending him sprawling into the bushes. Before the old lion could regroup the raccoon had fled the scene in a most cowardly fashion. I grabbed the cat, spilling my coffee on my leg in the process and carried him into the house. The cat was fine, no cuts or bruises of any kind. Needless to say my pants were soaked through with the scalding coffee. Somehow, I don’t think the cat cared, the old lion was now poised at the sliding glass door, tail flicking back and forth, to and fro. From my years of observing him, I could tell Tuxedo was in a high state of pique. The only sane thing I could do was to feed him quickly before he turned on me.
CHAPTER THREE
The cat was now chowing down on his second can of cat food. It sounds easy ‘feeding the cat,’ but nothing involving this cat was ever easy. My wife, in fact, had to leave explicit instructions on the chore. Although you would never have known it from looking at him, Tuxedo had feline leukemia.
Making sure he got his daily medication was critical to his well being. After opening the first can I had to put in 1cc of interferon, 2.5 ccs of Clavamox, and touch of vitamin C for good measure. Then I took a fork and mashed it altogether and presented the dish to the cat. Martha Stewart couldn’t have done any better, but I doubted that I’d ever get an invitation to appear on her show to prove it.
After devouring the first can with all his medicine, Tuxedo usually demanded another which I promptly prepared. No thanks from the cat were ever given, but then none were ever expected.
Since I was still without my cup of coffee, other than the one that was on my pants leg, I again retraced my steps back to Bagel Masters. The walk over had a certain deja vu quality to it. Happily I was able to accomplish
