Little Drummer Kittyboy

Each year when the weather turns cold, my humans erect a tree inside the house. In years past I have helped them with this task, but this year I decided my preferred method of help would be to lounge on the sofa and watch.

My humans decorate the tree with bubbling lights, little shiny baubles and loads of glittering bat-ables.

When I first came to live with Softie many years ago, she used to keep a real tree inside her house when winter visited. In fact, the first thing I ever did when she brought me home was to run behind the tree and have myself a nice poo. It's what I was taught by my mother when we lived outdoors, and I knew nothing of litterboxes back then, but pooing on the tree skirt is apparently not the way to a warm welcome in a new home. Each night I would climb the tree and tip it over. It was great fun!

The next year Softie thought she was clever by putting a planter hook in the ceiling and tying invisible fishing line from the hook to the tip of the tree. She really thought that would keep me from knocking over the tree!

It did, in a way, I suppose. Instead of the tree crashing to the carpet, it dangled at an amusing angle, and when Softie would discover it upon waking, I'd be scolded but oh, it was worth it.

Afterwards she got a fake tree.

The first fake tree she had was a hand-me-down from the old lady and man in whose barn I was born. It was a bit more challenging to climb this tree, because trying to scale the trunk was akin to trying to shimmy up a mop handle.

But I did it, much to Softie's dismay, and bent every single branch on my way up. Fun doesn't even begin to describe it. I had a party in that tree every night for a month!

Softie isn't the brightest light on the tree, but she eventually figured out that my favorite bat-able was a certain shiny green drum, and after she learned to hang it from a low, easy to reach branch we got along just fine.

The British One once caught me in the act of stealing the green drum from a branch. I was sitting handsomely on the arm of a chair, bored with the conversation he was having with his mate Malc, who had come to visit from England for the holidays. So engrossed in words were they, that they were not paying any attention to me. How rude! So I nonchalantly reached over and plucked the shiny green drum from the tree and held it dangling from my paw.

Malc and the British One roared with laughter, which spooked me into dropping it onto the carpet. I then proceeded to pretend it never happened, which amused them both greatly.

As I inspected our tree this week I noticed that the shiny green drum was hanging from the lowest branch, right next to my Poang chair.

It is comforting to know it is there, even if I no longer have the overwhelming urge to pluck it from the tree and bat it all over the hardwood floors at 3am.