Douglas, Nelson - Cat in a Flamingo Fedora

"Listen, lady, your cat is completely untrained. At least Maurice knows some tricks and responds to clacker signals."

"Louie is a natural performer, from what we saw of his improvised dance down those stage stairs. And what about Yvette's contract? Is she supposed to be shoved into third place by that camera-hogging yellow mongrel?"

Miss Temple's germane inquiries have even stirred Miss Savannah Ashleigh from flirting with the twenty-five-year-old cameraman. She undulates over in languid irritation.

"What is this about another cat intruding into what is already an imposition on my Yvette, who was to star solo in these tawdry commercial epics?"

By now the director has come over, patting shoulders, even mine.

"Calm down, everyone. The trainer suggested a spoof of the mustard with the two old gents commercial, and I thought it was a good idea. Maurice is simply in the scene as a loser, the cat who carries a no-name brand of cat food that Louie and Yvette can sniff their noses at as they partake of A La Cat. We will only see a flash of his swill and his hide, I promise."

"Just so he is not as prominent as my Yvette."

"Just so he does not get more airtime than Louie."

The director keeps nodding and crossing his heart and patting the ladies' shoulders. There is nothing like a good pet for soothing the savage beast. Not to mention Miss Savannah's savage breasts, of which the like I have never seen.

The ladies calm down and back off the set, but their two sets of eagle eyes watch director's and cameraman's every move. I notice both men's hands shake ever so slightly as they set up camera angles.

"Is the rude interchange over, Louie?" ma petite's voice mews from her recumbent form.

I must say that these Persians are very laid-back cats, except when they are mad.

"All is well," I reassure her, adding a lick or two, including a slow tour of her shell-pink ear.

"Louie!" she simpers with feminine delight. 'That could show up on camera."

"Let it," I declare. 'This scenario could use a little more spice, and that certainly will not come from Maurice, so it is up to us to uphold the standards of the species."

"Whatever you say is so sensible. You may lick my other ear, if you wish."

I waste no time taking up her invitation, and hear the director telling the cameraman to

"catch that."

But they will not catch anything from us, as we are both exceedingly clean, especially after all this ear-licking.

So the action begins. I mean the commercial-filming action, of course.

The two cars' facing back windows are rolled down. I am tempted to our car's inside window by a feather on a stick peeking up over the windowsill. Frankly, this tired feather, dyed a disgusting orange, would not lure me into a bordello of Birmans. But I do know what is expected of me, and bound to the open window, planting my broad black paws on the surface. No cries of paw prints on the wax job now. This is show business, and this pose is my business.

"Good boy," the director croons as the trainer crouches below the opposite window with the same tawdry toy.

And, lo! The awful Maurice puss pops up in the opposite opening like an ugly jack-in-a-box.

It is all I can do to refrain from sticking my tongue out at him, but I know that this would be an unflattering pose for the camera. I am trapped by fame and fortune from following my basest instincts. This is not a good trade-off.

We make faces at each other for a minute or more. The computer geniuses will add lip movements in the studio to fit the script. I have read the script, and know that I am supposedly boasting about the superiority of my brand of cat food, so Maurice must be singing the praises of some real poopon stuff.

The cameras pan past us to focus in turn on dishes of glop on each of our backseats. I do not know what ugly stuff is showcased in the ugly Maurice's ugly container, but our set features an Irish-crystal bowl heaped with this stylized A La Cat that has been plumped and tooth-picked until it resembles a beehive hairdo from long ago--if hair were usually salmon-pink.

I do my business by pushing the bowl of A La Cat toward the reclining Yvette. She reaches out a dainty paw to pat the bowl, then leans her little face into the mess and begins nibbling away.

I sigh in a way that is not detectable on camera, then insinuate my face into the bowl, so our whiskers interweave as we sup.

At the director's call of "Cut!" this particular segment is history.

"Look at how Louie stops eating the minute the director calls cut," Miss Temple points out with fond maternal glee. "It is like he knows he is off camera."

"Maybe he just does not like A La Cat," Miss Savannah Ashleigh says as she sashays over to wrest Yvette from my tender custody.

'Then he fakes it pretty well," Miss Temple crows, also drawing me out of the vehicle.

I try not to interfere with her magic moment, but I am a lot more pussycat to lift straight up than the Cotton-Puff Queen, the Divine Yvette. Miss Temple's dramatic reclamation of myself is less than graceful, and there is nothing I can to do prevent her further embarrassment.

"I think Louie's getting enough A La Cat to gain weight!" she announces to one and sundry.

And in this little moment of owner hubris, she loses her grip on me. I slide back to the car seat like a sack of potatoes.

"I will get him," the director suggests gallantly.

But, before he can move, the car I am stalled in does.

"Clete! Hit the brakes!"

"Where are they on this antique?" Clete yells back as he and I roll toward a very long, low, expensive-looking convertible covered in chrome.

A good question. I hop over the high front seat with my usual agility and find myself staring into the dark cavern of the floorboard, which bristles with gear sticks and other strange equipment. It resembles no car of my acquaintance, and I have motored extensively. Maybe my old man would have a tip or two on how to stop this rolling death trap, but he is not here.

"Oh, Aunt Kit's kaboodle!" Miss Temple exclaims, the only one with the sense or guts to run alongside the moving car. "Clete, can you hit anything on the floor to the left of center? The brake must be there."

"I cannot feel nothing but the gas pedal, lady, and you sure as hell do not want me flooring that by accident." Clete, wrestling with the giant steering wheel, overturns it in a panic that has us weaving right and left like a shuttle-bug.

I jump into the dark at his feet, hoping to avoid a crushing. The pedals look confusing even to me, just faint shapes in the dark I am used to seeing in. I identify the gas pedal, though, and hurl my full weight on the pedal left of it. Nothing happens, except that I am jostled to the floor.

I leap upon the next pedal and feel a slight hesitation in our progress. Bingo! Now to get some human muscle on the job.

I insinuate my forelimbs up the guy's right pant leg. He begins giggling, partly in panic, partly because my light touch tickles him. Then I snick out the shivs and claw down hard. He screams and tries to stomp me as if I were a bug. Maybe a foot-long centipede. I wait until the peril of the last moment, then leap aside onto the center hump. His combat boot stomps the brake so hard that both our noses hit solid surfaces. His head impacts the center of the steering wheel, which sets off a terrible sustained honking note; I bump into the center hump, sorely abrading my second-best sensory organ on the console.

Despite my cosmetically tragic injury, I clamber up and over into the rear seat, glad the Divine One had been removed before the rough stuff started. I also begin licking my nose, imagining how delightful it would be were the Divine Yvette loose and able to tongue my wounds.

Everyone outside the car is agog, helping the driver exit, asking if he's all right and how he stopped the car. The injustice of the moment stings worse than my skinned nose.