Kitty Kleaning

Two things you have to know before I start.

Blacken was a black cat. A thirty-pound black cat.

And Blacken could take care of himself . . .

It was a fairly normal day in the Hippard household.

People doing . . . household things. Cooking, tending children, office work, cleaning.

It was this last that was ultimately responsible for the ‘incident’.

Logan was in the office, attending to the afore-mentioned work when he detected a change in the regular household sounds.

A different voice.

A man’s.

Stepping to the door, he clearly heard, “And as you can see, the Sux Vacuum can easily clean up this mess. Far better than any other conventional cleaning product. Because it really sucks!”

Or some such statement-guaranteed-to-make-a-sale.

Shaking his head, Logan returned to his work.

But no sooner had he crossed the room, when he heard, “And now I’d like to show you the ‘pet attachment’.”

Logan knew the only animal that could possibly be within reach was Blacken (see above).

This, he had to see . . .

Hurrying down the short hallway, Logan was just in time to see the salesman – not without difficulty – pick the large cat up from its comfortable ‘I’m-relaxing-don’t-bother-me-if-you-know-what’s-good-for-you’ position on the living room rug.

Gripping the animal firmly, he picked up the vacuum hose with handy-dandy pet attachment . . . erm . . . attached.

“Okay, turn it on!” he said to someone else in the room.

The sound of the motor was immediate.

As was what happened next.

Just a hair (pardon the pun) behind the sound of the motor, and in an effort to get somewhere – anywhere – else, the cat instantly came to life.

With every sharpened digit fully extended, it climbed the man’s face.

And leaped from the top of his head to the nearest vacuum-less place.

Everyone in the room, with the possible exception of the two protagonists, saw the fall-on-the-floor-laughing potential of the incident.

Which they did.

For some minutes.

Because.

I should probably mention, here, that both claw-er and claw-ee survived the encounter – though the cat with much less wear and tear.

And, possibly in an act of contrition, the family purchased the vacuum.

But without the pet attachment.