Cat In An Alphabet Soup (Catnap)

“It is just for the records. We had better weigh him,” Miss Chirpy suggests.

At last! The grille swings open and I am swung out in my little lady’s loving arms. Not for long. I am swiftly deposited like an errant hairball on a black rubber carpet.

"Eighteen—nineteen. Nineteen point eight." Miss Chirpy’s tone drips with syrupy admonition. “Time for an improvement in diet.”

This ambiguous statement suggests that some chow is headed my way, at least. I growl approval as Miss Temple Barr lifts me again with a graceless groan, and follows the white-coated female into a private chamber.

I have heard of such places, though I am not sure if this is the kind of joint that arranges forced assignations between two individuals of the opposite sex who have never before met. I have never been party to such shenanigans in the past, being perfectly capable of finding my own lady friends.

“I am sorry, Louie,” Miss Temple Barr croons while chucking me under the chin. I have never known it to fail that a person chucks me under the chin when playing Benedict Arnold, or is it Roseanne Arnold these days? And didn’t her last name use to be Barr?

I only have time to scan the ceiling for spiders, study a cabinet filled with bottles and boxes of a pharmaceutical nature and observe that I am sitting atop a slab with a monolithic base not unlike a sacrificial altar. (I have seen my share of old movies when the TV remote and I are the only active things in the living room.)

The hair on the back of my neck rises as the door opens, then closes just as quickly. I glimpse another white lab coat.

“Dr. Doolittle,” another strange female announces herself. I am feeling surrounded. I look up and would blanch, were that possible. I am staring up at an exceedingly thin, tall doll with a face that would do a hatchet man credit. I have never before seen such a personage, but it is clear that Midnight Louie has joined the vet set, not by his own inclinations.

“Is he purring or shaking?” this female Dr. Death inquires, laying a bony hand upon my shoulders. I do not think much of her diagnostic skills; any fool could see that the frigid air-conditioning is giving me an ague. This doctor doll reminds me of every villainous or supposedly expert human female known to man or tomcat.

"I doubt he has seen a vet before," Miss Temple hazards, rightly. "He is a stray I found. He used to be unofficial house cat at the Crystal Phoenix Hotel on the Strip.”