My dog, Bolshoi the Boxer walked in through the door, looking all frazzled, scratched,cut and torn.

“Look what the cat dragged in.” I said, pointing to him.

Bolshoi glowered at me but made no reply.

“Cat got your tongue?” I teased.

Bolshoi growled at me and started washing himself in the small tub that serves as a basin.

“Why don’t you let the cat out of the bag and tell me what’s bothering you?”

I am as curious as a cat sometimes.

“Don’t mention cats to me. I have just had an encounter with the alley cat and although I was the victor, there was some collateral damage Inflicted.”

Bolshoi , at last, states the reason for his convivial silence.

That set the cat among the pigeons. I recognised the tabby he was referring to. She was a malignant one-eyed monster who hung around the house seeking fish bones.

I can never resist taking a dig at Bolshoi when he’s in trouble;it is scant consolation or repayment for the cat-and-dog life we lead.

Besides, I believe the old saying “A cat in gloves catches no mice.”

Grinning like a Cheshire cat—there is a mirror above Bolshoi’s basin—, I ask, “If you had lost, you would have had to live under the cat’s foot.”

Bolshoi puffs up like the Fat Cat he sometimes resembles,”I never lose. I retire.”.

“Is that why you’re looking as sick as a cat?”

I persist in belling the the cat or rather Bolshoi.

“Now, that’s putting the cat among the pigeons.Are you turning cat-in-pan on me?”

Bolshoi has caught on to my mischief. He knows that my continuous harp on ‘cat’ is meant to get him moving like a cat on a hot tin roof. Or in plain English, agitated.

“I must warn you that I am spoiling for a fight. I have some mementoes from my victory”. He displays a tangled fur-ball.

“Bolshoi, what can you have of a cat but her skin?” I sometimes use rhetoric to bolster my  argument—a trait wasted on Bolshoi.

“Why don’t you have some of the brandy from my medicine cabinet? There’s enough to make a cat speak.”

Bolshoi now looks ominous. His tail has stopped wagging but he waddles across to the cabinet and takes a swig.

I know that this game of cat and mouse has reached its apogee. Any more and I shall be the second victim of Bolshoi’s wrath.

I sidle to the door and mutter something about catting around.

Bolshoi looks mad enough to make a cat fear for her nine lives.Trying to calm him down would be like herding cats.

The room seems positively tiny; in fact, there’s not enough space to swing a cat.

I turn the door knob and make my exit but not before a Parthian shot:

“I guess she’s not a cool cat anymore.”

I step outside, only to witness the tabby swallowing a canary.

Quote of the day:
No one really listens to anyone else, and if you try it for a while you’ll see why. – Mignon McLaughlin