I may be the only tomcat in the history of plumbing who's been blamed for running up a water bill.
That can happen when the shower runs for hours on end, like it did the other night. Naturally, I stand accused.
The cat butler thinks the greatest luxury at the hovel is his outdoor shower. When the CB and his dad built our cabin many moons ago, they cobbled together an outdoor shower before the foundation was dry. It's still standing today.
Lever-style faucet handles deliver hot and cold water. The CB brags that taking a shower outside means he never has to clean the bathroom. I can testify to that.
What I like is hopping up on the wooden enclosure for a bird's eye view of my territory, protecting it from fearsome field mice, lizards and chipmunks. I lay alert on top of the scrap-wood shower enclosure that's neck high on the cat butler.
First I have to get up there. All it takes is a quick hop, and I'm on yard patrol, scanning the perimeter from on high.
The other night around midnight, time came for watch duty on my shower-stall perch. Only this time I misjudged my leap. My paws gripped the stall's top, but my back foot landed on the hot handle and turned on the shower. Great. Just great. Water gushed from the shower head in steaming gallons per minute.
Imagine the cat butler's surprise when he wakes up at 4 a.m. for his silly deer hunt. He steps outside for a moment and sees the running shower. "Boat Dock!" Visions of a three-figure water bill danced through his head.
I am so busted. About once a year I get whacked in the hiney with a newspaper, and I figure this is the time. When the CB stepped in to shut off the water I, Boat Dock, did a swan dive under the coffee table, safe from his wrath with sports section.
My manservant was chapped because his shower has been running for who knows how long. And because my foot turned on the hot, there was no hot water for his shower. Right. Like he needs to smell like Irish Spring to sit in a deer stand.
I'll wager that's why he never bags the venison. Where he hunts at Camp See No Deer, bucks run around with clothes pins on their noses because he smells like soap. That and he doesn't eat a proper hunter's breakfast.
All this shower business has the CB running late so he grabs a granola bar for breakfast on his way out the door. I've been on this planet long enough to know that a proper hunter's breakfast is bacon, eggs, hash browns, biscuits and gravy, coffee and maybe a cinnamon roll.
With proper nutrition, and skipping the shower, he might get a deer one of these years.
Boat Dock is feline outdoors columnist for the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. His column appears when he feels like writing one. Write to Boat Dock on his Facebook page.
Sports on 12/01/2015