Waffles returns his spring to the author during a game of fetch. (Sarah Caton photo)
You don’t have to believe me, but I would swear before a grand jury that this happened.
I was playing with Waffles on the floor of my bedroom near bedtime, and he apparently wanted me to come out into the living room. But he didn’t just walk out of my room and wait for me to follow. My adorable little kitten grabbed my thumb, gently but firmly with his teeth, and started walking. I had no choice but to crawl along beside him while he just kept walking. We perambulated this way for perhaps 5 feet, and then he stopped.
I assume, since he doesn’t speak English, that he was hoping I’d bring his toy mouse with me, since when we fetched up in the living room, he looked around for something. Since the only thing he could find was his stunned and amused mommy, he meowed at me. I took a guess that he was looking for his mouse, so I went back into the bedroom to retrieve it for him.
I suspect, if you didn’t believe me the first time, you definitely won’t now, but he did it again. He stuck out his head, grabbed my thumb with his teeth, and pulled me back into the living room. This time, I had his mouse in my unbound hand, so I threw it so he could play with it. The next 10 minutes was a game of fetch, which he does frequently. I do actually have photographic evidence of his games of fetch, but I have never in my life wanted to be able to record something as much as I did his grab-and-pull maneuver.
I’ve written before how Waffles has learned to sit, and even to sit up on two legs to receive treats, or even to just see over something he can’t quite view standing firmly on four limbs. And I’m sure there are many people with many unique tales of their cats’ exploits, however, this being my second orange cat, I would have to say that orange cats are the most likely felines to exhibit such unique talents.
While there is a lot of anecdotal information about orange cats (what the ‘M’ on their foreheads stands for, the fact that they talk a lot), there were only one or two actual facts I could find relating to orange kitties. The first is that Winston Churchill had an orange cat (which says more about the man than the cat, don’t you think?) And secondly, the pigment that makes orange cats, called pheomelanin, also makes red-headed humans. In my case, Loreàl makes me a redhead, but I’m going to claim a kinship to my Waffi, just the same!
There is just something different about orange cats. Maybe it’s coincidence, or perhaps it’s the stories of all the antics of orange cats that eventually make their way to those who create the cats that we see in our weekly comics or on screen, but the most famous celebrity cats are all orange: Crookshanks, of “Harry Potter” fame, Morris the Friskies cat, Milo, of “Milo and Otis,” and, of course, Garfield the lasagna-lover.
I think Jim Davis, Garfield’s creator, summed up best what all orange cat owners already know to be true in their hearts: “In my head, the sky is blue, the grass is green, and cats are orange.”
(Sarah Caton owns All Paws Pet Sitting, which serves all of Lincoln County.)
