Flattery from a cat

Posted on July 4, 2002 in Cats

Ambrose has grown accustomed to my ways and imitates some of them. Every morning as I eat my bowl of raisin-shrouded cereal in bed, he squats next to me. I finish the crumbs, slurp up the last drops of milk, and then present the beige stoneware bowl to him. He licks it clean.

I go to the bathroom. He saunters after me. While I perform my ablutions, he goes to the pink plastic water dish we’ve set there for our eldest cat, Tracy, who is perpetually thirsty. Ambrose dips his paws in the water and sucks them dry. I’ve asked Lynn if she has ever seen him do this with the bowls in the kitchen. She says “no”. I must then conclude that little Ambrose has paid me a high compliment, that of doing in the bathroom the same thing he sees me going there to do: he’s washing his hands.