I hope you were not running around the cul-de-sac in your neighborhood at 1:30 in the morning wearing a ripped nightgown and chasing your cats this week.
I was.
I blame Innocent Husband.
Insomnia is my cursed friend. So, at 1:30 at night, I am often up, sometimes writing what the weird characters in my head say and do.
I heard a sound outside, looked out the window into the dead of a black night and noticed that Innocent Husband had left all of the windows of his car down, plus his sun roof.
I do not know why he did this. Perhaps he is trying to catch falling stars or fairy dust or something. Innocent Husband often does things I do not understand. He baffles me.
I groaned and sent him a little glare as he snoozed in bed, then trooped out to close the windows of his car. I did this in a grumpy way.
I closed up the car’s windows and headed back to the house to chat with Mrs. Insomnia again when the cats, Leroy The Linebacker and Simon The Jittery One, snuck out.
They KNOW they are not supposed to be out late, they do. Leroy recently got in a fight with a cat AND a raccoon, one day apart, this last week. The raccoon was out when it was barely dusk. Two trips to the vet later and Leroy’s grounded.
But those bad cats RAN when I tried to get them back in the house. Those cats skittered away from me in the dead of a black night, stars shining down, the moon highlighting my ripped nightgown. They darted, they twisted, they turned.
I hissed their names like this, “LEROY!! SIMON!!” in a loud whisper so as not to wake my neighbors because I was flapping around in that little yellow, ripped, old nightie that does not come down to even mid-thigh. I have been married a LONG time to Innocent Husband so I wear frumpy stuff like this to bed.
Those two bad cats got together about ten feet away from me and KISSED, as in victory because of their late-night escape. It was like looking at two teenagers high-fiving each other.
I chased those bad cats around the island in our cul-de-sac looking like a damn fool. Around and around we went. I’d get close to catching one and the cat would giggle and take off, having so much fun.
I eventually gave up. I had to. I was out of breath. I was sweating. It is impossible to catch sneaky cats.They loved being chased. I could tell they were disappointed when I stopped playing that fun game. I could hear those cats laughing at me, I could.
I hope no one filmed me trying to grab them, stumbling over my own bare feat, my hair all over my face, swearing at my bad cats.
I sucked in air and trudged back into my house, only slightly limping.The cats laughed again. I think the moon may have laughed at me, too.
The cats came home the next morning. They looked victorious.
I have told Innocent Husband he is now grounded. He laughed at me, too.
Here is what you need to know: Cats laugh at us, they do.
(This is Leroy and Simon pretending they did nothing wrong.)
