The Kitty Catcher

We used to have a large orange cat named Hobie.  He moved away, finding better options at our neighbor’s house.  Like heated towels she put in the dryer for him to lie on while he nibbled on turkey from the butcher.  I don’t even feed my husband turkey from the butcher, nor heat his towels in the dryer, as husbands are not so finicky as cats.  Cold pizza is fine with him.

Hobie Cat doesn’t notice us anymore, being utterly too fat from cat delights to do much but waddle among the wisteria.  He looks like an orange raccoon.  But he used to follow us around the garden, pretending to be on Important Cat Errands while we were working.  Odd that his Errands were never more than ten feet away.  He’d be facing the other way, not deigning to recognize us, but as soon as we went into the front yard, there he’d be too, under a rhody.

A little neighborhood girl decided she wanted to hold Hobie, and Hobie was having none of it.  As soon as she got within five feet, he’d flee to the next bush.  Hubby noticed this.

“What you need is a Kitty Catcher,” he stated to the little girl.

“What’s a Kitty Catcher?” she asked.

“I’ve got a whole bunch of them in the garage,” said Hubby.  “I’ll go get you one.”  A few moments later he was back with a string tied onto a thin dowel.  “Just draw it over the ground where you want the kitty to go.  It’s magic.”

About five minutes later, the girl walked past holding a confused Hobie, who no doubt wondered how he got into her arms.  He was a gentleman about it, at least, but catching a kitty can backfire when you are only five and they weigh twenty pounds.  Catching them is more fun than carrying them.

We have our own Kitty Catchers, but they are not spelled that way, illustrated by another little girl, this time from England and named Rosie.  She was also five years old and her parents were our table-mates on a cruise.  Poor little Rosie was the only child of her age in the whole dining room, and she was bored to dddddddddeeeeeeaaaaaaaaatttttttttttthhhhhhhh.

Ah, but lucky for her, we have Kiddie-Catchers.  One involves pieces of paper napkin placed on wet fingernails and accompanied with a litle song about birds flying away.  Poof!  The birds disappear at the right moment.  Then poof!  They come back. Mysterious! Often even for adults.  Then Hubby, master of parlor tricks, showed her how he could throw his finger in the air and catch it again.  He could inflate his bicep by blowing on his thumb.  He could pull off his thumb. 

The next day Rosie came skipping into dinner, tugging her parents to go faster.  I showed her how to make a see-saw with fingers, and played Here’s The Church, Here’s the Steeple, which her parents had never even heard of.  Another involved crossing your arms, interlocking your fingers, pulling them through then try to raise the one pointed to.  Giggles ensue.  Can you raise your finger when the third knuckle is on the table?

The following day, Rosie came dressed up in a darling little dress and a wore a flower in her hair.  She wanted to sit between us.  For dessert, we had a strawberry shortcake, and we asked her if she liked her strawberries.

“It isn’t straw-bear-ry,” she informed us.  “It’s strawh-burry.”

We melted, finding a child with an English accent utterly charming.  Then she smiled sweetly and patted my hand.

The Kiddie-Catcher evidently works in reverse, too.