TINKALIKE

It all started about a week ago when the cats overheard me telling my neighbor Carlito about my travel plans. "I'm gonna leave on Monday," I told him "head for Texas and then decide whether to go all the way to El Salvador." I knew the cats had sensed something was up by all the meowing and clingyness they were exhibiting. Usually quite self sufficient, satisfied with one bowl of cat chow in the morning, now they didn't want to let me out of their sight. As I walked around the house I could spy them keeping lock step, trying desparately no to lose sight of me through the windows. When I sat down at the computer they both perched on the woodpile staring Keene painting wide eyed at me. What?
Then the pitiful pleas for attention got even more bizarre. At first I thought Paris had a piece of card board stuck to her fur, leftover from a romp through the garbage. Then I noticed more than one....and it seemed as if they were strategically placed. I let it go and went about my day, running down my travel checklist- sleeping bag, tent, flashlight, CDs, holy water, etc. Do cats cry? I swear I saw Nicole shed a tear. Then I noticed it was smudged ash from the woodstove rubbed around her eyes. A day later Paris ran up and sat down right at my feet. I barely recognised him.
The unmistakable Hitler mustache was there, but that was it. Sharp cardboard triangles were spit applied to each ear. A tight clear plastic bag surrounded his middle, cinching his gut in like a girdling tube top. He wore four Budweiser bottle caps on his feet and had somehow snaked his tail into a striped soda straw. Now everybody knows cats can't talk but it was at this point Nicole jumped on a patch of dirty snow and frantically moved her ass around. I knew she was trying to tell me something. When she jumped off the snow there it was. Still steaming in yellow and with a tiny brown turd as an exclamation point- TINKERBEL!
I was floored. Those chesire smiles came across their little pusses as they saw I finally got it. Even without getting the spelling perfect it was quite a feat. I was touched. "You two kill me." I said bending down and petting them both. A cardboard ear fell off Paris and the soda straw tail whipped my leg. It's not everybody's cats that will try to change species just to get you to stay home. "I love you both just the way you are." I assured them. Then Nicole disappeared. I kneeled down and helped Paris wriggle out of the plastic bag. "I'll be back before you even have a chance to miss me." I heard a racket out in the yard. Across the brown grass flopped a flexi length of drain pipe with only Nicole's heavily masqueraed head popping out the front. "I get it you're a snake." I said. Paris jumped on that snow bank and in jerking motions spelled out Chiwhawah. "I know." I said. Even with their lousy spelling it was going to be tougher saying goodbye that I'd anticipated. "You could have just spelled dog." I advised. Silence. They both looked at me as if to say- What's funny about that?