NaturallyResilient

About

I had a friend, Becky, who was the complete opposite of me. She was the artist, very right brain; I was the analytical engineer, very left brain. She hated cats, I had four cats. The tie that we had in common was that we each had a child of about the same age. But even that was different. She had a girl and I had a boy (and they did not get along very well). But we were young mothers looking for adult conversation so we found each other.

Since this is animal Wednesday, this is an animal story. I know children can be animals sometimes but this is not about the children. This is about my friend’s cats.

You are right; I said she did not like cats. She thought they looked sneaky. I told her “you would be sneaky too if you had to be leery of dogs trying to kill you and big birds carrying you off.” This is about all her neighbor’s cats who thought of her back deck as a meeting ground or convention area or maybe the local spa.

Becky had mentioned to her sister that the cats congregated on her back deck and she really wished they would stay away. Her sister told her of a product to buy that would keep them away. This item was a frog garden statue. However this was a special statue, it had a motion sensor. When it sensed motion, the frog would croak!

Becky had to try it. She placed the frog on her back deck and waited. Before too long, one of the local cats showed up for its afternoon sunbathing on the deck. The frog croaked and the cat was startled, however it did not run off.

Becky and her sister failed to consider a major character trait of cats, curiosity. The cat sat for a while watching the frog but when the frog failed to move or react again, the cat moved to find a sunbeam. The frog croaked again. Now the cat knew something was up. It moved closer to the croaking frog. The cat then started calling, and another cat jumped over the fence, then another. Soon there were several cats sitting around this croaking frog. It was like they were daring each other. One finally got up the nerve and ran up and batted it with its paw. The frog just sat there croaking. Another batted the frog, then another. They all had their turn and, bored with the game, they ignored it and each found their sunny spot and laid down for the day.

To say the least, Becky was exasperated but I was amused.