Old Macdonald had a roof

Malcolm, my tiger-stripe, got up on the roof this morning.  I discovered this when I sat down for my daily “if you’re not outraged you’re not paying attention” surfing – Pandagon, Gilliard, Huffpo and the other usual suspects – and there he was looking in at me through the window above the computer.  I’ve never seen even a squirrel up there before.

He was still there when I was getting ready to leave for the doctor’s, walking in circles on the metal slope and mewing.  I have no idea how he got on the roof – something Sadie, my quasi-calico, has yet to accomplish in the year and a half we’ve lived here – but I knew he’d need help getting down.  Malcolm has enough trouble negotiating the descent from the six-foot fence around my little yard without making a major production out of it.

On my front porch the edge of the roof isn’t too far above my head so I stood there, coaxing him close.  He balked at first but after a few minutes of kitty-talk – “c’mere, that’s right, c’mon, yes c’mon little weenie-brain, oh that’s right, yes, come here poo-poo” – he slid up to the edge and stuck his head far out enough for me to pet it.

Which is when I hooked my finger under his herbal flea collar and hauled the little bugger close enough to grab his ass and get it down to the porch.  He didn’t like it much and I got one or two small scratches in the process, but half a minute later he was mewing again, rubbing against my ankles and trying to shepherd me inside where I would doubtless give him a second breakfast.

Malcolm being low-maintenance

Someone passed by on the street walking her dog and called up, “From here it looked like you were pulling a duck down on top of you.  Or maybe a goose, the way his tail and body were thrashing.”  I felt totally sheepish for the next half-hour, having forgotten what theater us balcony-dwellers make for the rest of the world.

Then I got to the doctor and she gave me a prostate exam and I forgot all about the damn cat and the damn roof.