Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Dora and the dishwasher, or the problem with two-inch collar rings


Working on the sit-stay with two of the peons
I don’t understand why the servants leave the canines unattended as they are always getting in trouble.  

The other night while Susan, one of my servants, was busy in another part of the house, Scott, my other servant, proceeded to fill the dishwasher.  He became distracted and went outside, leaving the dishwasher open.  This isn’t a problem for me or the other felines in the house as we prefer to take our tithe from the kitchen table and counters.  The canine creatures, however, will scavenge from any place, including the dirty dishes.  

Dora, usually not the dumbest of the canines, decided to take advantage of the servants’ lack of attention and busily applied her disgustingly long tongue to every dish she could reach.  She was actually enjoying this.  Until.  Yes, there is usually an “until” when you talk about canines, isn’t there?  The stupid beast’s collar ring caught on the lower section of the dishwasher.  

If she had been a feline, she would simply have removed the ring from whatever it was hooked on.  Not surprisingly for a canine, however, she panicked and fled to the far side of the room, which also happens to be the far side of the house.  She ran faster than I've ever seen a canine run.  That is especially impressive when you consider the fact that she took the lower section of the dishwasher with her, scattering plates and utensils willy-nilly throughout the room.  

THAT brought the shirking Susan running!  The other canines came running, too, until Susan used the Voice I have given her permission to use under certain critical circumstances.  Tweed, Sally, and Declan all stopped in their tracks.  Dora, the idiot, crawled over to her, expecting sympathy for the destruction she had wrought. 

INJUSTICE!  The servants yell at us, the royal felines, for taking our due reward from the counter tops.  Do you think that ingrate yelled at the canine which had broken two of her grandmother’s pink willow dinner plates?  NO!  She did quite the opposite, in fact, asking the wretch if she were alright and giving her a friendly and comforting—comforting!—pat at the same time.  

Scott, the useless servant who started it all by leaving the dishwasher open and unattended, crept in as the other was cleaning up.  He took one look at the scene and realized what had happened.  He has been much more careful with the dishwasher since that night.  I am disappointed as it has been my fervent hope that Francis or Aidan, the other two felines in the house, would crawl in for a washing.  I will have to devise a different plan.  

Sincerely, Nokta, queen of the house