A Cautionary Tail
Hi! I’m Lucy. I love to get high. No, silly…not with that stuff that messes up your mind. I like to get into treetops, on top of bookcases, perch on the headboard…you know. I like to watch my owner do things, too. Wherever she is, I’m right beside her, checking things out. She thinks maybe I’ll learn and take over the chores for her, but I like supervising just fine.
Let me tell you about something exciting that happened one Christmas.
I really enjoyed the tree she put up for me. That tree was full of dangly, 
shiny toys that moved a lot and bounced when I managed to swat them off their perches. It wasn’t much fun to climb, though. Too tippy! And those bows were fun until I found out they had sticky stuff on them. Hmmm…Torture devices? I also liked all the flickery, smelly can-duls she put all over the place. She had them on the shelves, in the kitchen, in each bathroom and in the bedrooms. The place smelled great!
I was supervising the laundry one morning when I smelled something strange. I turned to look, and my tail was full of a lot of little flashes, like those sparkler-sticks that the kids carried around last summer the night all the big booms and flashes were going off in the sky. When I waved it over the can-dul, they flashed even more. It was COOL!
Owner looked up and made a funny noise. She reached over and grabbed my tail, and slid it through her fingers….whoosh! The sparkles went away, and my tail really smoked and smelled bad. I yowled at her and tried to jump down, but she grabbed me and put my tail under the faucet before she let me go. So there I was, with a soaking wet, stinky tail.
I went and sat on her pillow. It got wet, too. Served her right!
She tried to apologize, but I made her suffer for an hour before I snuggled in her lap.
Now she doesn’t put out those flickery things any more. She just heats up jars. It’s not as pretty, but still smells good. I guess that’s o.k.
(This is a true story. We don’t have Lucy any more, but still tell her ‘tail’. It wasn’t on fire long enough to burn her, but I shudder to think of what could have happened to her and the house if I hadn’t been right there. So, a word to the wise. All that advice you read in the paper or get off the internet about pets and holidays has a basis in something that really happened.)
LOVED, LOVED, LOVED THIS STORY! It was so interesting written in the cat’s “voice.”
There’s a basis for the old saying “Curiosity killed the cat!” Glad she was okay!
Yup – and she was ALWAYS getting into something!
That might have been tragic!! Glad you caught her!
You’re right… and it still bothers me when I think about it. Don’t know whay I wasn’t aware BEFORE this happened. But I watch the cats, now, and don’t often have open flames.
That’s safety first! Enjoyed your post. Little animals are great subjects. It’s difficult though for me to write the emotional impact of losing our pets– dogs, cats, and horses, I love to read those stories by other writers. Maybe one day I can write my stories too.
Yikes! Glad she was okay:)) Last year, my dogs tried to eat ornaments, so my tree was naked around the bottom to avoid temptation. So far this year, they’ve not bothered the tree.
Eww! That could be dangerous for them, too – swallowing pieces of them.. They’re just like toddlers, aren’t they?
Delightful!
thanks!