Phil Escaping

Arriving home from a weekend trip recently, my wife and I approached the front door only to see Phileas J. Fogg, our aging indoor cat, sauntering casually toward us along the sidewalk that abuts our house. When I  recognized who he was, I gave him my usual friendly greeting. Susan, on the other hand, did a double take: when she realized that he was not some neighboring feline but Phil himself, she almost jumped off the ground, propelled by both astonishment and alarm.

This event marked the second time in the last month that Phil  has made a break for freedom. The first time, he took advantage of our replacing a storm door with a screen door; his second escape happened, we later found out, when a house guest opened the door to let someone else in.

It gratifies me to discover that Phil has not altogether abandoned the golden dream of freedom. All his years of indoor living have not extinguished the fires of the wild life. He may look subdued most of the time but in his heart of hearts he still wants to run around out there competing with his kind for birds, field mice, squirrels, and other local prey instead of biting and scratching  his human caretakers as he is still prone to do.

From the beginning, I wanted him to have the run of our neighborhood, but I was outvoted in my own household,  two to one. Even at this late date, I would welcome a referendum whereby that original vote could be reversed. If so many humanoids these days are exploring new areas in their old age and taking serious risks in doing so, why cannot Phil live out his days in the wild of our neighborhood with all of its threats to his life?

But perhaps Phil has escaped, not so much for freedom as because of growing dissatisfaction with the daily cuisine imposed on him within our household.  He may be fed up with all those years of Science Diet. I have not eaten any of it personally, but it certainly looks unappetizing to me.

The remedy for this flat diet came in the mail last week. A friend, out to twit my notoriously mixed feelings about domestic animals, must have added my name to the mailing list of “Fancy Feast” out of Madison Heights, Michigan. In any event I now have the company’s brochure full of treats for “discriminating cats.”

Underneath a photo of a contented customer, the front page promises “Exclusive offers for Richard Griffin.”  Inside is a gourmet guide with “37 succulent flavors that satisfy even the most discriminating connoisseurs.”  This means “you’ll  never run out of ways to please your pampered pet.” And, by clipping a coupon, I can save fifty cents on ten cans of gourmet cat food, any variety.

But how can these merchants presume that our Phil is pampered? In fact, the secret of my success with him is that I refuse to indulge his whims. I attribute my abiding popularity with Phil to my holding the line against unrestricted favors.

If the unvarnished truth be told, the two other members of my family grind their teeth when they realize that Phil loves me more than them. They think themselves worthy of his affection whereas I have done nothing to earn it.

And their claims have a certain specious justification. After all, Susan is the one who takes care of Phil’s daily needs, fore and aft. And, when he goes for his medical checkups, an expedition providing a lot of grief, who takes him? Susan.

Emily, too, considers herself more worthy of Phil’s appreciation than I. After all, it’s she who is responsible for adopting Phil in the first place. Had not she, as a child, found her way through the obstacle course to cat adoption that I established, and persevered in amassing the requisite number of “cat points,” then Phil would never have come to live with us.

Admittedly, Phil may be judged rather perverse in preferring me to those who really care about him. But they don’t kick him around the way I do. Nor do they confine him to the cellar for long periods, as is my custom. And they do not demand that he stay out of their study area, as he must do with me under pain of getting squirted.

Clearly, Phil appreciates tough love. Perhaps it’s because he and I both enjoy senior status in our species. We have matured enough to understand that one does not show love by feeding the other with Fancy Feast gourmet food but rather by a kind of austerity that brings out the best in both feline and human character. By such an approach I hope to continue enjoying my ascendancy in Phil’s affections for the duration.

Richard Griffin