Hisses and Yowls

We got a new kitty. I thought Wimsey was lonely and needed a playmate, now that the Peeing Kitty has been banished to the outdoors, and there at the vet's was this tiny, friendly, adorable orange tabby. So I brought Marple home.

Total disaster. Unlike Wimsey, tiny, friendly, adorable Marple comes equipped with rapier-sharp claws which he has yet to learn how to retract. He frenetically, ceaselessly, desperately pounces on Wimsey--playwithme comeoncomeon playwithmeplaywithmeeeee. Wimsey loathes him and our household now pulsates with hisses and yowls.

I watch them and I remember the summer I was ten, when we took a family vacation to the Ozarks. My two oldest brothers had grown out of such trips but my parents insisted that the third in the line-up, 16-year-old Jeff, come along. It was of course the Dark Ages of family travel, long before mini-vans or house-sized SUVs, with no in-car video players or headphones or iPods. Jeff just had to sit and endure us all, two younger brothers and two younger sisters and of course Mom and Dad, for the entire two-day trip down from Chicago. I don't think he ever spoke. He certainly never smiled. Once in the Ozarks, we settled into two adjoining hotel rooms on the second floor overlooking the outdoor pool--the three boys in one room, 7-year-old Cheryl and me and my parents next door--and several days of morning jaunts and afternoons playing in the pool. Except for Jeff, who hunkered down in the hotel room, where he read Popular Mechanics and engaged in lengthy masturbation sessions. (The automobile obsession I knew about at the time; I only learned about the autoeroticism much much later.) Jeff's sullen refusal to join in the family fun drove us younger kids crazy; we'd periodically pounce on him--playwithusplaywithuspleeeese-- but no matter how hard we tried, all we got was a bunch of  hisses and yowls.

16-year-old Hugh is home from school for the weekend. He arrived at 5:00 pm Friday night, put down his dirty laundry, picked up the car keys, and headed out to hang out with friends. We agreed he could spend the night at a friend's house--with Tropical Storm Lee bucketing down on us, it seemed a sensible plan. Except he didn't come home til 6 pm the next day, and only when we called and insisted he do so.  "We want to see you," we said. "We want to have dinner with you, talk with you, spend some time with you." Much hissing and yowling on his side; increasingly desperate pouncing on ours: Playwithus playwithus comeoncomeon itwillbefun you'llseeyou'llseeee. . .