A customer at my laundromat told me how he ended up being a cat owner
for the first time in his life.  I haven't the slightest idea what
this old gent's name is but this is the story he told me.  Read it
with a Southern drawl similar to Andy Griffith's and it will be almost
as if he were telling the tale himself.

"There was a time when I drank a bit."  (He winked so I knew it was
more than a little bit.) "I'd go out and sit under Mansion Bridge, the
old wood one--not the new one, and drink awhile.  I liked it there
'cause it was quiet...peaceful what with the woods all around and the
river.  Sometimes I'd fish, sometimes just have a couple of beers.
Anyway, I was just sitting there in the quiet one day and I kept
hearing a cat, but I couldn't see it so I figured it was just
somewhere in the woods.  I got ready to leave, put my gear in the back
of the truck, and opened the door to find a half grown gray tabby tom
cat sitting in the passenger seat looking out the windshield just like
it was waiting for me to take it home.  Well, I never had a cat before
and I wasn't sure I wanted one.  I'd always had dogs for pets when I
was young, but no cats.  Well, I reached over the seat and picked up
the cat and took him a few feet from the truck before I put him down.
And don't you know, before I could get the truck door open again he
had ran around the truck and hopped back in through the passenger side
window and sat down in the same exact spot!  Well, the cat seemed so
determined to go for a ride in my truck that I took him with me."  

"I fed him for about a week and he stayed at my house, but I got to
wondering if maybe some little child was missing him.  I had gotten to
like having that tom around, but I didn't like thinking some kid might
be sad 'cause I stole his cat.  I put the cat into the truck and went
back to the bridge, then I drove to the one house you could see from
the bridge and stopped to ask a man doing yard work if he was missing
a cat.  The fella told me he didn't know of any cats in the area at
all, but that every now and then people would just drop off an
unwanted pet or two near the bridge.  Well, I guess that tom cat knew
what it was doing when it hopped into my truck.  I couldn't leave a
half growed cat beside the road like that.  Wouldn't be fair to the
creature.  Since that guy wasn't missing one, I could keep him, so I
took him back home."

"Sometimes I took the cat with me to Mansion Bridge, he'd just sit in
the passenger seat like a person during the ride.  I half expected it,
but he never ran away when we were at the bridge.  He stayed with me
for the rest of his life."  (Then for the first time the smile left
his face, the sparkle left his eyes, and he frowned.)  "Funny how a
little critter like that gets under your skin.  I sure was sad when he
died."  (The gent paused, shook his head a little as if to rid himself
of a bad memory, then smiled again.)  "You know, I've had a couple
more cats since then, but not a one of 'em liked riding in my truck
the way that first one did!"

(We laughed together.  Even now I can almost see a half grown gray
tabby, a smug grin on it's face, sitting on the passenger side of a
bench seat in a beat up old pick up truck, waiting for the ride to
begin.)  
Debra in VA