Our Zora used to lick the butter. If we left it uncovered we’d come down in the morning to find tiny grooves in butter from her cat tongue.

When Gary or I confront something neither of us is willing to admit we did, we say, “The cat did it.” It is a none-too-subtle admission of fault. Sometimes we don’t remember breaking a glass (nearly always Gary) or losing track of something (mostly me), or which of us cut a sandwich on the baking cabinet (me again), or we’d like to blame our children or housebreakers. It was me or it was Gary who did whatever it was because we are the only two living in our house. But even when we are certain who “done it”, we might say: The cat did it. Mind you, we were saying this when we had one or the other cat, and we’ve not stopped saying it merely because our last cat left the planet some years ago. We could have blamed our dog Yeti, but she would have been offended. The cats did not care.

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