the gambling cats
by
Bruce Dalwhinney, retired and deeply depressed by the loss of his aged and much-loved calico cat, is existing on a diet of fried vanilla Twinkies and diet cokes. When his dream of lovingly hand-raising two Grand Champion, purebred Siamese kittens is shattered, Bruce is suicidal. In desperation, his loving wife, Doris, kidnaps him and spirits him away to an animal shelter to adopt two common, barn-born tabby kittens, feline hoi polloi. Are Kittenstein and Frankenfur mini-monsters from kitten Hell or Bruce Dalwhinney's last hope of salvation?
Bruce Dalwhinney had his pet peeves. Not those petty annoyances we all experience in daily life, but the animals we dote upon.
For instance, Bruce just didn’t get guppies. How, in the 19th century, Trinidad clergyman, the Reverend R. J. L. Guppy, was so deeply moved by the sight of this small, freshwater denizen giving live birth to her pin-sized progeny? Yet Goodman Guppy was inspired enough to send the first specimens home to the British Museum and is immortalized by the popularity of his namesakes in contemporary aquaria around the world. But a baby guppy? They’re so small and helpless out of water, Bruce thought, and it’s hard to tell if they’re really returning your affection.
READ MORENo. When it came to pets, Bruce Dalwhinney was a cat-person—a rabid cat-person. But he didn’t bite, or foam at the mouth, or lurch around London, Ontario menacing animal-haters or those of a different pet persuasion. Neither was he a twisted ‘Typhoid Larry,’ intent on infecting others with his enthusiasm in some ruthless quest to create a global pandemic of cat-lovers or bring on feline Armageddon. Not at all, Bruce just really, really liked cats. And Bruce would be the first to raise his rum glass in salute to the resourceful Reverend of yore and his sincere interest in the gravid guppies of Trinidad.
Thus, Bruce was completely tolerant of dogs and dog-persons. But set down this: When in the privacy of his own home, his sanctum sanctorum, Bruce worshipped only at the altar of the Egyptian cat goddess, Bastet. And as for the servants of the jackal-headed god, Anubis? Well, live and let bark, he said. They were welcome to bring their doggie offerings of soup-bones and chew-toys to His temple next door.
COLLAPSE“Even if you aren’t a Cat Person, you will join the ranks after reading this delightful fable. The Self-deprecating narrator does battle with post-retirement depression, fending off the Black Dogs as best he can. But he can
only yowl with dismay when Life, and his loving, no-nonsense wife toss his plans into disarray. Spoiler alert: it’s Cats, not golf to the rescue.”
