Down from the Attic
Changing Costumes

by Mewsette

 

Some old attics are perfect settings for Halloween scary stuff. Dark, cobwebby corners, strange bumpy shapes, big white hangy things that might be ghosts, eeek! I hope there's a light in there. If there is, turn it on! Ah, that's better.

Proper old attics also used to be a treasure cache for human childrens hunting up stuff to be Halloween costumes, too. That was back before they started buying plastic ones in stores, I think. And much more fun, seems to me. Costumes were created from old aprons, feather boas, scarves, turbans, tablecloths, Grandpa's bowler hat, stuff like that. Wonder where all that stuff went.

It was fun any time of the year for us cats, and a wonderful place to catch mice. Modern houses these days don't get very many mice for us to catch, have you noticed? Isn't that a shame? I hope they're not dying out! That would be just awful! Much as I love my furry mousie toys, they are not really the same. They might look real, but they're not. And you dasn't eat the nose off one of them either, you could get sick.

What happened to all the real stuff? The real milk with cream on top for cats (and maybe coffee, I suppose), the bristle brushes that were so good for brushing cats (and ladies' hair, I guess) the balls of yarn that sat around in baskets for kittens to play with (and grandmas to knit, of course). There always were wonderful toys for cats, and houses were just full of them without anybody going out and buying expensive things on wands. Not that I'm against that! Oh, no. We deserve the best. But the best used to be all around us. It seems like some of it went away, or isn't real any more.

We cats who come and read this Zine are also different, though. Even we get to dress up in costumes now! I just love that myself! Maybe some don't think it's real, but who can tell what's real any more? If we're having fun, who cares? I guess when old things go away, new things come to take their place. Maybe things just change their costumes. That's okay. Unless they're plastic. New things can be good, too. Unless it's skim milk.

But someday nobody will remember the old things any more. And I want them to. Even in these modern and new times, I'd like to see the old things get brought down from the attic.