2008 Woodie Awards
Bidding adieu to Fayetteville
Stranger in a strange land
Noel Runyan
Issue date: 8/27/08 Section: Life & Style
The suitcases are packed. The larger, black one is covered in a fine patina of white cat fur. The brown one seems to have escaped this fate, at least for the time being. But there is still one more day. Plenty of time for mischief. I read somewhere that animals have a heightened sensory perception and can feel natural disasters before they happen.
I glanced down at the cat, beached like a whale upon the carpet, limbs spread akimbo in a gesture of serene passivity - the Vitruvian feline. "Not a chance," I thought.
Ever since my parents left her at home for a week with a huge dish of food and she ate it all in two days, she hasn't done much more than waddle around and fall down in the middle of the floor during random intervals. But the suitcases tell the tale.
Starting about the middle of last week, the cats began protesting. One follows me around, yowling and trying her best to look pitiful. The other perches on top of the suitcase for hours and hours on end, apparently under ?the impression that I won't be able to leave the house if there is a cat on top of my suitcase.
Ordinarily, I would expect a hunger strike to follow, but given her recent history, I don't think there is much risk of that. ??
The dog, on the other hand, is a bit more perceptive. He has been in a funk ever since his basset hound died right before Christmas. Now that he realizes I'm leaving him, he lays around looking like he has lost his last friend in the world. His ordinary melancholy has given way to abject pathos, a canine Pieta.
I'm on to him, though. As soon as my dad feeds him tomorrow, they'll be best friends. His heart is easily lost and easily won, it seems. The cat, however, has a heart of ice.
When I left home my first year and came home for Thanksgiving, it took her three days to even look in my direction. Her good favor, once lost, is lost forever. Once she sees that her sit-in on top of my suitcase has come to nothing, I'll be persona non grata to her. That's that. Who knows how many months it will take to get back in her favor?
I glanced down at the cat, beached like a whale upon the carpet, limbs spread akimbo in a gesture of serene passivity - the Vitruvian feline. "Not a chance," I thought.
Ever since my parents left her at home for a week with a huge dish of food and she ate it all in two days, she hasn't done much more than waddle around and fall down in the middle of the floor during random intervals. But the suitcases tell the tale.
Starting about the middle of last week, the cats began protesting. One follows me around, yowling and trying her best to look pitiful. The other perches on top of the suitcase for hours and hours on end, apparently under ?the impression that I won't be able to leave the house if there is a cat on top of my suitcase.
Ordinarily, I would expect a hunger strike to follow, but given her recent history, I don't think there is much risk of that. ??
The dog, on the other hand, is a bit more perceptive. He has been in a funk ever since his basset hound died right before Christmas. Now that he realizes I'm leaving him, he lays around looking like he has lost his last friend in the world. His ordinary melancholy has given way to abject pathos, a canine Pieta.
I'm on to him, though. As soon as my dad feeds him tomorrow, they'll be best friends. His heart is easily lost and easily won, it seems. The cat, however, has a heart of ice.
When I left home my first year and came home for Thanksgiving, it took her three days to even look in my direction. Her good favor, once lost, is lost forever. Once she sees that her sit-in on top of my suitcase has come to nothing, I'll be persona non grata to her. That's that. Who knows how many months it will take to get back in her favor?
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