At the Click, Say "CAT" -- by KittyCat

After supper one night last week, I got up on Dad’s chair to get my ears and chin scratched. “Oh, good,” Mom said, “Keep him occupied while I set up the computer.”

Dad kinda frowned trying to connect thoughts of scratching my ears and Mom turning the computer on.

“I’ll need your help in a few minutes,” she said. “I’ve already tried to hold KittyCat up for the camera to catch both of us, and he wiggles out of the picture just before it snaps. I need you to hold him for me—first while I comb his jabot—he’s been obstinate about being groomed—and then to pose him close to me for our picture.”

“Comb his what?” 

“His jabot...” She pointed to my neck and chest, “see how his fur’s not smooth and even here? He’ll look scruffy in the photo.” 

Dad kinda frowned again. He’s not interested in fashion or hair styles, and I’m not either. He said he was going to bed in a bit cuz he had to get up real early, so he’d listen to his football game while he fell asleep.

“Well, in that case, I think I can take his picture, and then use one of these programs to fix it.”

By this time I had walked across the back of the couch and sat behind Mom. I saw her type this in a search box: photo enhancement.

As she clicked around different places, I finally figured out what “photo enhancement” means. I’m thinking, she can just check around for cats, then. If I’m not good enough, she can find another model.

But a second later, I remembered the pumpkin patch photo shoot, and how I outsmarted her. I slid down from the couch to the floor, and rubbed Mom’s leg with a generous show of playful affection. Let the fun begin. By the time I got tired of mucking up Mom’s picture plans, we’d see who looked scruffy.

Four hours and a half bag of bribery treats later, Mom still didn’t have the picture she wanted. I rested on the back of a chair in the living room. “Finally…and this will be so sweet,” she said as she set up the computer camera in front of me. Cat-quick I sat up and moved over just before it clicked. For a senior, Mom wasn't so slow herself.

Want a big toothy smile when you aim the camera at folks? Forget “smile, and say cheese.”  “CAT” works fine.

 

Smile and Say “Treats” -- by KittyCat

Bicklesworth--rhymes with picklesworth. That's the cat that beat up on me once. Scared he'd hurt me again, Mom wouldn't let me go outside for a long time. 

One day in a bad mood, I'm thinking, this is too stupid. Mom won't take my picture outside cuz Bicklesworth is out. So she makes this phony fall scene with pumpkins, fall flowers, and stuff, all on a grass-looking rug inside the garage. While she scatters silk leaves around--that's silk, as in fake--Dad is outside mowing, picking up real leaves and dumping them on the compost pile.

Ready to shoot, Mom put me and a treat on a pumpkin—the only real things in the whole scene. Ha, ha. I did a grab and go, and before the camera clicked I was snickering from a high shelf.

Mom stepped into the pretend pumpkin patch, and looked up at me. “KittyCat! I went to all this work to take your picture. Come here! This is so-o ridiculous.” All tempered up, she stomped her foot.

I almost fell off the shelf, laughing.

Ha, ha. Mom’s heel had hit the edge of a dandelion-looking plastic disk. As it flew up, it zapped a cardboard potted plant, and then both got hung up on a piece of wire. The wire you couldn't see before, now stuck out between pumpkins and other props, its leaves looking more like a string of broken lights than fall decorations. Startled, Mom fell backward into the bale of hay—you'd think a good landing place. But, with legs pointing up, she sank right through the “hay bale”—a straw-covered cardboard box.

She got up p-d-q, but the box stuck to her behind and hit this thing called a backdrop. It dropped—but not quite to the floor, cuz Mom was in the way.

I jumped down. All that laughter right after lunch jiggled the kibbles in my tummy and I got cramps. I puked on a pile of silk leaves—a pretty good place, cuz the colors in the up-chucked cat food blended real good with those in the phony fall scene.

Mom groaned like her tummy hurt. She stood the torn backdrop up again, but a paper bird's nest had traded its plastic branch for Mom's head, and a hobby-store sparrow hung from the witch's broom on her Halloween sweatshirt.

I looked at scrunched leaves, a broken pumpkin, the upturned hay box, and props turned everywhichway. Yeah, Mom, I thought, it is so ridiculous

The takeaway? --next time you’re in a bad mood, look around. You'll find something ‘so ridiculous,’ you'll laugh yourself silly.

(c) 2011, Bernice W. Simpson