Down From the Attic: Springtime at the Trunk
~by Mewsette

You know what a trunk is, right? No, not like an elephant or a tree; the huge, black, boxy thing with a lid that lifts up from the back. It has a shelf on top that comes out, pieces of brass all over it, and a big doorknobby thing that locks. All the human ladies in my family had one, clear back to the 1800's. No, they never packed them to go on steamship voyages. They just packed clothes they weren't wearing for the season it wasn't in there.

My Mom has one, too. Hers sits in a bedroom corner, and seems to be great for piling stuff on top of as well as in. That's a shame, not to mention messy. Because the proper place for a proper trunk is in the attic. But that's the problem.

In the Olden Days, attics were really neat. You could get into them. I know, because my Mom has told me all about the Olden Days. She was there. There would be windy stairs going up from a corner, or a big latched door thing that you pulled down from the ceiling, and steps were on it. The steps led up into the attic. It was going up into a big room with high windows, lotsa dust bunnies, an occasional mouse - stuff that we cats love.

Somebody strong would carry the lady's trunk to the attic, and there it stayed forever, like part of the house. Right where it belonged. Every Spring and every Fall, the lady visited the trunk to exchange piles of one season's clothes for piles of another's. And the cats got to go with her. Can you imagine what great fun we cats had in the Olden Days, when we could get into attics and supervise the putting in and taking out of stuff from the trunk?

Some things about modern life are no fun at all. I have an attic in my house, but it's that kind with a square wood thing to pry loose while the human stands on the clothes washer, and nobody but a 10 year old boy could get in there, anyway. Not even me. I can still jump high, but I can't fly. There's no window up there, no fascinating old stuff, not even a mouse. I'd know if there was.

But we still get to have Springtime at the trunk. It gets opened, the shelf gets taken out for us cats to examine the stuff in it, and we have heaps of fun jumping in and out of the open trunk for a good two days. We hunt in it for anything fun. Or I do. My sisfur Phelicity hunts for tissue paper to eat. Then sweaters and coats get piled in there, but not much is taken out, cause I have one of those sloppy moms who wears Tshirts for all occasions. I keep hoping a mouse got in there, but one never did.

Spring is a time for new things, even new old things, coming out. Like the flowers outside, the bulb has been packed away all winter, but the ground opens and a new daffodil comes out. The eggs that hens have been setting on crack open, and new baby chicks come out. It's a wonderful time for us cats to watch for new things.

Somehow, I think better things might come out of that trunk for Springtime if it was where it belongs, and they came down from the attic.

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Article: How Not To Take Your Medicine
by Mewsette

The best thing for us cats to do is to stay healthy and never get sick. But sometimes, of course, we don't have control over that. Well, we hate giving up control, let me tell you! But if we are supposed to be given medicine by our ill-advised personal humans, there is a way we can maintain some control, maybe even some dignity. I'm going to tell you how.

First, get your humans out of the room right now, because you don't want them reading this! This is secret stuff for feline eyes only.

They make medicines for cats in several different forms. That's because one form after another failed. But they're still foolish enough to try them all, so we have to know how to deal with all forms of medicine. This includes supplements that they decided we need, which we don't want, i.e. all of them. They have pills, they have drops, they have gels, they have powders. They even have shots, and all you can do about shots is hide. My instructions are for things they think they're going to get into your mouth.

Pills are the worst, in my view, and also the one humans get the sneakiest about. If you ever read "How To Give a Cat a Pill", you know why. They tend to faint when they lose a lot of blood, and of course we don't want that! Another reason why they get sneaky is that they look at the size of the pill (about the size of a corny dog without the stick), and they look at our tiny, delicate mouths, and they say "No Way."

The big pills are the ones they might try to coat with butter and pop down our throats real fast. Our best reaction there is to pretend it's a hair ball and project it across the room. You know how. But if they coat a little pill with butter, hoping you won't notice what's in there or, worse, blowing on our face to make us swallow, we gotta think fast. What you do then is tuck it into the side of your mouth and give a big gulp. They'll be so proud of you for "swallowing" your pill (and so proud of themselves for not bleeding) that they'll go away.

That's when you sneak off to your most private, dark corner - you know, that one in the closet behind the shoes - looking totally innocent, I might add, and spit out the pill in the corner. Don't let them see you coming out of there. If they see you, and find your secret 2-weeks-old stash of unswallowed pills, you're in big trouble. That's when they're going to crush it up into water and sit on you while they squirt it into your mouth next time! So don't get caught! I speak from experience.

Now about drops. Those come in droppers. Watch your human's hand carefully when they approach you, and if you see a dropper in it, get ready. You should have run under the bed, right to the center and stayed there until next week. But in case you didn't, or in case your human keeps "under the bed" stuffed with flat boxes just to irritate you, start rotating. Rotate your body away from the dropper first. When they clamp their knees around you, rotate your head. Keep it up; we have nice, limber necks just for that purpose. Humans can't rotate their dropper hand that far. They have to keep repositioning themselves. But if they get your head in a vise-grip, clamp your jaws shut. We have nice, strong jawbones just for that purpose.

Humans tend not to give up at these times, unfortunately. And they're stronger than us. So if the drops get into your mouth, dribble. I know, it's messy. We hate being messy. And we gotta clean it up ourselves, too. They know that. My mom plays awful dirty about drops. When she's got more on her than I've got in me, she dribbles the rest down my leg and paw! Unfair! Now I ask you!

I spent a long time properly instructing my little sisfur Phelicity how not to swallow drops. She was hopelessly cooperative until I demonstrated. So now she gets them down her leg, too, and boy, does she get upset! Of course, she blames me for it!

Now gels are the least horrid. We can have a good time with those. I didn't think cats could spit until my furmama had to get a gel every day. Well, don't believe everything you read. She could spit a foot away! She was so good! Oh, how I admired her! I can't spit nearly that far, but spitting is very effective. Unless you get a real determined human that scoops the gel off the floor and stuffs it right back into your mouth! Let me tell you, it can get real nasty and fuzzy by the third or fourth time, so you just swallow it in self-preservation. Like I said, my mom plays dirty.

Powders are what humans love, because they can hide them in our food. They think. Don't they know we can detect the least bit of something foreign in there? Don't they know we're not going to eat it? You're not, are you? Because the longer we hold out, the better stuff they'll put it in to get it down us. Who knows where that can lead? Turn up your nose at tuna, mackeral and cream, and they might even buy us caviar.

Well, we deserve it after going through all that.

Okay, remember well everything I said. You can let your humans back in the room now.

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Writers Society Page in Spring Zine

Spring Fever
~by Mewsette

I was born and lived most of my life in the country. Spring fever is real strong in the country! It was a glorious time of year and a glorious time to be a cat. The days got long, the rains came, and the whole world turned green, my favorite color.

Spring fever meant planting fever. After the tiller man came, we cats had a huge, lovely garden of soft brown dirt to roll around in and dig in. You could jump off a fence post and sink in it, up your chest, it was so soft! I loved dirt in those days! Of course, I am much more refined now.

Every evening I ran out the door with my mom to help her dig in the dirt. The best fun was when Mom planted the little onion sets for me to dig up. Then she'd plunk them back in their little holes so I could dig them up again the next evening! If I forgot about them for a week or two while I helped her plant peas and lettuce and radishes, they grew spiky green onion tops, and I didn't like the smell. So the onion game was over. But those onion rows were always so crooked! I don't know why!

I loved munching on little green stuff that came up, too. Lettuce is very good. But don't ever eat a radish top. They taste awful. My mom started putting rabbit wire boxes over the beds of green stuff. That was okay, I laid on them to shade the little leaves from the sun when it got hot. Mom said I should behave, or she'd feed me a whole salad for dinner. Of course, I'm much better behaved now.

Then I got Fever for all the little birds making nests in our trees and the cheeping I heard coming from them. I better not discuss that. And I started finding little green garden snakes to take to my mom for presents. She liked that. Well, I think she did. Later, I brought her a tiny little cauliflower I found out there for a present. She was so happy she cried! We all made lotsa noise in the Spring. It's just a good time to make happy noise. Of course, I'm much quieter now.

Know what? This Spring, I'd like not to be refined and well behaved and quiet. I want to get my paws in dirt and dig up stuff. I want little green snakes. I want Spring Fever.