Chat's Cat

From day one Chat has hounded John to buy her a dog and I had to keep reminding John what his life would be like if he gave in. John would be taking care of the dog: Feed it and groom it, take it out in the freezing cold at 530 a.m before he goes to work when he could be snoozing comfortably in bed or risk waking up with a smelly pile on his carpet. Because Chat's role would only be to play with the dog - nothing else. John agreed and held out. Until 2 weeks ago.

When Chat was young (elementary and high school) on days when we were home, Don would stand by the window watching for Chat coming home from school. Then I would see Don rush out the door yelling; "Here comes Chat with them animals again." Chat would pick up stray dogs and cats and brought them home and sometimes even our neighbors' dogs and cats would end up in our house for a few days until Don found their owners to return them to. Don kept telling her to stop dragging animals to our house because we didn't want them but Chat found a way to keep them. Outside her bedroom window were thick green landscape shrubs where she would drop down plates of food from her window without us noticing. Until of course Don found them.

So when Chat called me while I was still in Cebu to tell me that they have bought a cat, I was afraid she was not joking so I had her put John on the phone, I said: "John what happened? Did you really agree to buy a cat for Chat? OMG, I won't be visiting your house anymore. I would have hairs all over my clothes when I come visit you, not to mention the smell. Did you really agree?" John just laughed.

Last week, when they came to pick me up at the airport, I had to see Johns face, make sure Chat didn't talk him into this tragic decision. "Why John? Did you really agree?" One thing endearing about John, he doesn't know how to lie. " I don't have to walk it."

I used to be the screen saver on Chat's Blackberry and John on her Iphone. It's now Tygger on both.