Come gather round children and listen while I tell you the tale of my world famous talking cat....
The Talking Cat
(A fairy tale by Marty)
Once upon a cold and wintry night in the early hours of the morning, as I was slowly staggering home only about one tenth sober, after what may commonly be known to the drinkers amongst us as a lock-in, I discovered to my chagrin that my house keys were not in my pocket, and that I now seemed to be well and truly locked out (as well as totally locked).
Hoping that I may have forgotten to lock the back door, I staggered round to the back of the house, only to find that I had indeed securely locked and bolted it before I had headed out for my night of sampling the finest wines, ales and spirits at the local watering hole.
Not being what one would exactly call the warmest of nights, the thoughts of sleeping on the doorstep seemed not all that appealing to me. Staggering back to the front of the house, I briefly considered heading across the street and knocking on the door of my neighbour who always held a spare key to my house specially for emergencies like this one. However, when I looked at my watch, I realised that he would not be truly pleased to be woken up and got out of bed by a drunken sot like myself - especially bearing in mind that this was a week night, and he would have to be getting up for work in a few short hours.
Pulling my threadbare jacket around myself, I decided the only course of action was to sit on the front step and hope that, if I actually went to sleep, my neighbour would spot me on his way out to work later, ask me what on earth I was doing, and fetch my spare key across to me so I could finally get in.
After about a half hour of sitting there shivering, and wondering just what in a past life (because it couldn't have been anything I had done in this life, could it?) I had done wrong to deserve this present bad karma, a thought began to slowly take shape in my befuddled brain.
'Maybe I left the key hanging on that piece of string inside the letter box,' I thought. This was a tendency I sometimes had, probably a hang over (I very nearly joined those last two words together) from my days as a latchkey kid, when my mother used to work late, and I would get home from school before her. It would simply be a case of pushing the letter box open, hooking my index finger behind the string that was hanging down inside it and retrieving the key that was tied to the end of the string - the string being long enough for me to reach the keyhole on the outside of the door.
Staggering back to my feet, I pushed the letter box open and peered through it. My heart sank on finding that there was no piece of string hanging there inside.
I was about to sit back down when I noticed, in the dim light of the nightlight that I always left burning when I went out at night (to put off the potential burglars, you understand), Tibbles, my cat, sitting on the banister at the bottom of the stairs in the hallway, looking at me with a confused stare and an amused grin.
I was saved!
"Oi, Tibbles!" I exclaimed. "Open the door."
Tibbles gave me one of his haughty looks and simply said "Me? 'ow?"
And that, dear children, was how I discovered that I had a talking cat...
