Miss Kitty speaks

No one knows how old Miss Kitty is, and she's not telling.

This will be our fourth summer with our calico cat with the bald patch on her face. At a minimum, Miss Kitty has arrived at early middle age. I am a good deal beyond that, but the cat tries to be sympathetic.

When I come home each evening, I stop in the kitchen and sit for a spell in one of the stools at the breakfast bar. Since Miss Kitty usually comes in for her evening visit when I come home, she assumes that sitting in a kitchen stool is what you do first -- even before standing guard over the spot where my wife will give her a small serving of cold milk when she gets home.

Miss Kitty has watched us carefully to see what we humans do inside the house. She knows that certain cat behavior is unacceptable. For example, she is not permitted to lie, crouch, sit or jump on anything white, and we have a lot of white stuff in our house. So Miss Kitty has adopted a "when in Rome" approach to being an indoor cat, even if it's only for a few hours each evening.

When I sit on my kitchen stool to read the mail or do the crossword puzzle from the morning paper, Miss Kitty expects me to pull out the other stool for her.

Here's how I know she's approaching middle age.

It's her grunt.

When she launches her well-padded furry body from the floor toward the seat of the stool, she makes this "Uhnngh" sound.

She probably isn't even aware of it.

Just like I wasn't aware that I make the same sound when I bend over to pick something up or lift something heavy.

When I made fun of Miss Kitty for her grunting, my wife observed she had heard the same sound somewhere else. Let's see, where was it ...?

Miss Kitty also has observed that there are other things she does that result in being taken to the back door leading to the patio. Miss Kitty has not spent her life conniving to get inside our house only to become a patio cat. So almost any activity resulting in banishment is rarely repeated.

She also has a ploy for diverting us from a potential trip to the back door.

Whenever my wife or I says anything that indicates the cat is about to cross the line, she looks at us to make sure we're watching her and trots, with her ample waddle wagging from side to side, to the wicker chair in the family room that has been designated as Miss Kitty's throne.

Uhnngh!

There's that grunt again as she jumps up on the afghan.

Miss Kitty, who of course understands every word we say, has developed quite a vocabulary of her own.

For example, when she wants pity, she does her silent meow. If you have a cat, you know what I'm talking about. It's when the cat's mouth moves but no sound comes out.

This is the way Miss Kitty lets us know that she is in desperate need of something she shouldn't have, like a milk refill.

Then there is Miss Kitty's bark, something she probably picked up in her days living in the wild, when being to imitate a dog might come in handy in certain situations.

But she is a cat, so her bark isn't Arf! Arf! or Bow-wow! Instead, it comes out more like Mack! Mack!

Her best speeches, however, are reserved for the time it takes to walk from the garage across the patio to the back door. It doesn't matter whether you're coming or going, Miss Kitty has something to tell you. Never mind that she's talking so fast in a language you don't speak that you don't understand a word. You know by the body language how put out she is when you don't respond as expected.

It usually has something to do with her food dish.

I wish we could, just for a few minutes, have a real conversation with Miss Kitty. There's so much going on in that brain of hers. I'd like to know what she really thinks instead of making human guesses about her behavior.

I'll bet we'd both be surprised.

R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.