Frankie Weiss and Her Magic

From the Marlton Animal Hospital the drive was about 24 miles home, besides talking to Frankie and Johnnie, my mind was addressing the reasons I wanted felines and not a dog. A cat if left alone for a day or overnight, with food and water, has no problem taking care of itself and doing what comes naturally in their litter box. Dogs will eat more than is good for them, if food is left in their tray, it will disappear rapidly. A cat is smart enough to eat just enough to sustain them until hunger comes again. Any dog has to go outside twice daily, no matter the weather. They need the exercise and the opportunity to eliminate their waste matter. They need our human companionship so much more than a feline. Cats are inventive, spirited, and very curious and will explore things and are great climbers. They will amuse themselves in ways so foreign to a canine by creating play a dog would never understand. For these reasons and a few nameless others, I could never do justice to a dog adoption. Cats have no problem loving their keepers. Dogs love their owners. Notice, I wrote cats have keepers, not owners. This will be explained in more detail later in the story.

Finally, reaching the driveway, I took the pet carrier out of the car and walked up the steps leading to my front door. Out loud, I welcomed Frankie Weiss and Johnnie Weiss to their new home, I was proud to give them my surname, along with a wish that we would share a fruitful and happy home. Entering through the front door and putting down the carrier on the living room carpet, I opened the grill; Johnnie immediately ran behind the sofa and hid. Frankie, extrovert that she is, was more interested in surveying her new home. Looking around the living room, she then went from the dining area to the kitchen, saw the food I prepared earlier, and continued her journey through the bathroom and little den. Coming out of the den she noticed the stairs leading to the recreation and laundry rooms. After exploring that area, she came back upstairs and went into the kitchen and partook of some of the Fancy Feast Chicken Hearts and Liver with gravy that I had prepared earlier, Frankie does not touch dry food. She then went downstairs and did her duty. (I like to think she knew her Mr. Mom was thoughtful and concerned regarding his adopted “children’s” welfare, in preparing food and the litter box for their homecoming, and that he knew what was important in a felines life.) The love between Frankie and myself was already a forgone conclusion. When she came back upstairs, she was not alone. She was carrying, between her teeth, by one of its ears a little gray plush bear 4 or 5 inches in length. It had been sitting, quietly and in dignity, on an orange cushion covering a Parson’s bench, minding its own business for quite a number of years. Evelyn and I had picked it up someplace in our travels. Frankie having a mind of her own, decided that had to change, again she fell in love, at first sight, with a bear.