You are hereby ordered to hug your cat

You are hereby ordered to hug your cat

As a rule, I take the law seriously.

We are a nation of laws. Without laws -- and the systems to uphold those laws -- we would be in a fine pickle.

By the way, "a fine pickle" is not found in many law books. A lot of good stuff, I've found, has been omitted from our law books. The plain fact is I can't do anything about that.

However, I can tell you that when a judge -- not one of the supremes, but a super judge in any event -- hands me a handwritten order, I take notice. That's what happened this week.

First, let me tell you about the first time I ever hired a lawyer.

It was 1966 or 1967, and my wife and I were living in the Kansas City area. As a reporter for the Kansas City Star, my coverage "beat" was all of Platte County. At that time, Platte County was a mostly rural agricultural county. Now it is the home of the main Kansas City airport and is full of bedrooms for folks who work in the greater Kansas City metropolitan area.

My wife and I adopted a dog from a farm family near her hometown. The dog's name was Monk. The dog loved to play with neighborhood children, but these youngsters didn't know much about the law. In particular, they had no sense of animal-control ordinances.

Monk quickly became a multiple offender. The first time he was taken to the animal pound, it cost $10 to free him. The second time was $20. Folk, that was serious money to a young couple in the mid-1960s.

One morning we put Monk on his outdoor leash while we got ready to go to work. Kids walking to school took the dog off his leash to play with him. They did not put him back on the leash. Monk decided to go to school.

Seeing the leash with no dog attached, I quickly realized we would have to come up with $40 if Monk was taken to the pound again. So I did what any law-abiding citizen would do: I called the police department and reported a stolen dog.

Sure enough, we got a call from the animal-control officer later that day. And, sure enough, it would cost $40 to get the dog back. "But the dog was stolen," I pleaded. "I should get my stolen property back at no charge."

Yeah. Right.

So I called a friend I had made while covering Platte County. He was the prosecuting attorney in that county. At that time, the prosecutor could also continue his private legal practice. I told my friend about Monk's situation. He said we might file a writ of habeas corpus, but then he remembered an appellate court decision that said habeas corpus was for human corpses, not canine corpses.

So our friend the lawyer suggested we file a writ of mandamus, which would put the dog back in our possession while the legal fine points were worked out.

We drove to the county seat, Platte City. My wife typed up the writ as the prosecutor dictated. When we got to the part about the value of the disputed property, our friend reminded us we would have to post a bond that was double the value. My wife typed "$1."

Then we drove to Liberty, the county seat of Clay County where we lived. We filed the writ of mandamus and posted the required $2 bond. A sheriff's deputy was assigned to retrieve our "stolen" dog. The city attorney for Gladstone, the city in which we lived, also was a friend. He called a couple of days later to tell us the case against Monk was being dropped -- not because we were in the right, but because it would cost the city too much to go through a lot of legal wrangling over a dog that was already a three-time loser. We said, "OK."

And Monk was a free dog, thanks to Prosecutor Witt, later Judge Witt. But not free to roam at large on the streets of Gladstone.

All of this came to mind Monday while I was at the weekly Rotary club lunch. That's when I got the handwrit writ from U.S. District Judge Stephen Limbaugh. It was writ on a torn-off chunk of the Rotary bulletin, and it said:

"Tomorrow is National Hug a Cat Day according to semissourian."

I could tell it was hastily writ, which added to the urgency of the matter.

Your honor, I can truly and proudly attest that I hugged Missy Kitty on Tuesday. I told her that I was following the judge's orders.

Missy Kitty took the legal hug, looked at me for a few seconds and then began licking her netherparts.

Legal etiquette was never Missy Kitty's strongest suit.

Joe Sullivan is the retired editor of the Southeast Missourian.