IF ONLY THEY COULD TALK - WEEKEND ASSIGNMENT

Weekend Assignment #17: Through some unexplained miracle, your pet or pets gain the mental capacity for speech for exactly the length of a single sentence. What do you think that sentence would be and why? For those of you without pets, please use a former pet or the pet of someone you know. If you've never ever had a pet, well, first, you're kind of odd, but second, then just imagine what a generic dog or cat might say. Caveat: Don't say that they'd say "I love you." I mean, really. Of course they love you. You know. They know you know. You know they know you know. And so on.

Extra Credit: You get one question to ask your pet that (presumably) it would answer. What's the question?

This is our Only Cat at the moment.   Her name is Molly. We have had three at one time in earlier years.  When the last of those cats died, we were too heartbroken for quite some time to even imagine gettting another one.  Then one day....there was a notice on a board in the Ptown health food store.  With pictures. A guy was moving and needed homes for his cats.  We loved a cat who looked just like the picture of this cat. A friend of ours had her; her name was Madge and she was a darling cat.  So...we went to look at this one.  She was three years old, came purring to my lap. She was soft, had a black spot under her chin. She was round and sweet.  We said "we'll think about it."  And went on our way.  The next time we were at the grocery store one of us put a bag of catfood in the cart.  The other one of us came down the aisle with a bag of kitty litter.  We said:  "Okay, now let's go get the cat."  She's been with us ever since.  She rode up and down the Interstates with us during our long stretch of two-state living; she lived in a motor home with us for most of a year while we all slowly became psychotic; she moved to this big old house in Delaware, and has been very happy here.  She adapted to the ingress of a dog into our house and lives - letting him know with no nonsense, but also without violence, who was Queen of the House. She's almost sixteen now, and we already look at her with sorrow for the inevitable time when we will lose her.  She is the best, most loving, most expressive, most interesting cat we've ever had.  And between us we have had a raft of katzken. 

The sentence she would speak would be, I think, a question itself.  It would be something along the lines of:  "All I want in life is constant loving; why is it that you don't stay somewhere I can get on your laps ALL THE TIME?"  (That IS TOO one sentence; it's a compound sentence, or something, isn't it?)

And here is the answer to her every little furry prayer:  a darling little girl to brush her until she just goes berserk with the wonderfulness of it and bites her.  Which is what happens, she loves it so much it drives her crazy and ultimately she turns into Psycho Kitty and kicks with her back paws and bites.

IF I could ask her a question, and if she could answer me - it would be the same as one of justcherie's questions.  Because she is getting older, thinner, slower, and she limps going up the stairs, I would ask her is she is in pain, where is it, and how bad?  Is there anything I do that helps, and would she please let me know when it gets to be more than she can bear.  Because of past experiences with cats in inner agony, and because this is a cat that can make her needs known, I know she will let us know what she needs when she needs it.  And I hope the day is a long long time a-coming.