As you most likely have gathered, my brother is not the brightest cat that ever lived. Oh, sure, People love him because he's cute and he purrs a lot and he's too friendly for his own good, but other than all that fluff, there really isn't much there. I love my brother, don't get me wrong, but I am definitely blessed with the bigger brain.

That being all well and good, my outrageous IQ has gotten me into a spot of trouble here and there...but nearly spelled out the end for poor Zooey. It happened back when we were living in Our New Home and our Person was cleaning up Kitchen so that we would have a nice clean place to eat. She was putting her big round things into the Foamy Machine and left the door open. How cool was that? There were lots of places to climb and sniff...stuff oozing and dripping onto the bottom...I'm talking CAT HEAVEN!!! I wanted to go in there and look around, but I was much to short to jump up onto the door.

I thought about it, then came up with a plan. Zooey would go up first, then help me climb up there. It's how I got onto everything tall when I was a kitten...it's nice having a garganutan older brother when you're little. I got Zooey and told him what to do, but forgot that I have to remind him constantly what he's doing or he will get distracted. He jumped up and looked around, but instead of pulling me up with him, he turned tail and started heading into the mouth of the Foamy Machine!!! I yelled for him to come back, but he didn't...leaving me there alone.

About the time I yelled, our Person turned off the Waterfall and looked around at me. She chased me out of Kitchen and to my horror started to close the door to the Foamy Machine!!! I yelled for Zooey again, and this time he paid attention to me and yelled for our Person not to shut him up in there. When I think of how close he came to being eaten that day, I am thankful that he has me to take care of him...he, of course, says that's rubbish and he could have made it out on his own...

See more "tails" by Nancy Lassiter