Cat In An Alien X-Ray

The beauty of my plan is that all the customers (I guess at the Wynn they are “clients”) are facing out into this brilliantly sunlit façade. Anyone who happens to turn and spot me will be “light-blind” for many moments, and I plan to keep moving.

My ride to the top may be as yellow or red as a priceless Italian sports car, but it is a much humbler and common domestic object.

Yes, friends, I am going to be doing the Mary Poppins act. Not with the clumsy black bumbershoot the Brits favor, but with the floating fanciful umbrellas that constantly rise up and down in the area known as Parasol Up and Parasol Down, which will in future be known as Louie Up and Louie Down.

Everyone’s ground-level focus faces away from me as I tumble into the belly of an upside-down yellow puffy number dripping tassels. Yeah, it is a girly sort of ride, but I use what is at hand, and the green piping matches my eyes.

There is nothing black here but me, so I will be clearly visible when I reach the second level, where viewers loiter to watch the parasols glide up and down like hot-air balloons.

Oops! Is it possible some of these open umbrellas are programmed to close now and then? I seem to feel my airy carriage turning into a deflated balloon and scramble to attach myself to a passing purple-and-gold parasol that is going … down, not up!

Below me lies the sea of white giant umbrellas covering the outdoor tables. Around and above me waft the Technicolor flock of floating parasols. I almost hear a Viennese waltz playing as they lilt up and down and leap like the pink-toe-shoe-and-tutu-wearing hippopotami in Disney’s Fantasia while I spring froglike from one moving silken lily pad to another.

From the three viewing balconies on the second level (that would be Parasol Up) come exclamations and exhortations.

“How’d that cat get in here?”

“Maybe he thinks the parasols are birds.”

“Dumb cat.”

“Oh, the poor thing. He could fall and die!”

“He could fall and kill someone.”

“Someone call Security.”

“I’m filming. Get outa my way.”

“Hey! They said at the desk, pets weren’t allowed at this hotel. I had to leave my Mexican hairless at home.”

“This is going on YouTube.”

And, cruelest cut of all, “Is that a big fat bat, Mommy?”

Despite the rude comments, I paddle and churn and claw my way upward, hearing telltale hisses of fabric in my wake. Steve Wynn will be after my skin. Luckily, one of my type looks much like another on first glance and I doubt there will be any organized witch hunt.