Cat In A White Tie And Tails

Yes, the words “Miss Louise” do provoke a visceral reaction in me. Unfortunately, I cannot stop my insensitive human associates from thinking it is “cute” to name another black stray cat they have come across after me, in the distaff version of the moniker of “Louie” revered in song and story.

How many famous Louies are there? Let me count the cherished examples.

There is the title song in my honor, “Louie Louie.” It has 1,500 recorded versions, numero uno. Take that, Beatles. You are so “Yesterday.”

Of course, every bartender in the world is named “Louie,” only he doesn’t know it. Louie rules.

As for “Louise,” there is only that one oldie song how “every little breeze seems to whisper Louise.”

Right now I could use that breeze for a short-wave communication.

Who do you think uses my proven methods of breaking and entering through Miss Temple’s patio French door, but the previously contemplated Miss Midnight Louise.

She seems seriously out of breath.

“So what have you gotten your exercise doing?” I inquire.

“Now that you are all alone and lounging around maybe you will listen to a report of import from me. I have activated the Cat Pack, and have heard from a night crew I put on duty. I borrowed a couple of Ma Barker’s best to shadow the suspicious parties at the Neon Nightmare club. There are only three in residence now that Cosimo Sparks was killed in the underground Chunnel of Crime between Gangsters and the Crystal Phoenix Hotel. Did you know, Daddy-O, that the world-class magician David Copperfield had sought to establish a franchise of underground restaurants?”

“No! So the Fontana brothers’ concept was not the first. What is with all these humans yearning to go underground before their time?”

She sits to twist and groom the tip of her long, fluffy train with long, lavish licks of her tongue, just to aggravate me. True, she could be one of those intellectual longhairs … or of rock band ilk. Maybe aristocratic blue-blood runs in her veins, but it is sure not from my side of any family tree, which scotches claims she might put forth for a personal relationship.

She desists bathing to lift her head and answer. “Perhaps it is a death wish,” she muses, “but I think it is the human quest for quiet and privacy.”

“Especially if they have something to conceal, like the mob would. Ma Barker hear of any mobs in Vegas besides hers?”

She shrugs as if having an itch right between her shoulder blades, that section so infuriating to reach.