Boo sits and waits at the bathroom door as if guarding it. He is waiting for me to turn on the faucet for his morning drink.

Mixers is my verbal cat. She waits until I am sound asleep, then stealthily jumps on my bed. She startles the living crap outta me with her bugle cry, which gets louder with each passing day, because she is 15 and almost deaf. This means she wants me to pet her head.

Annie cakes lies all the time. She waits at the front door and quietly meows, at all waking hours, indicating that she is so hungry her backbone is rubbing her belly.

My late Whiskers would put his two front paws on my lap and look at me. This meant he wanted me to hold him.

My late Patches would spy around the corner of the kitchen wall…and glare at me and follow my every move. That meant it was time to eat.

They have me trained well.

After that when my cat would playfully bite my finger or arm, I’d swat it, hard enough to send it tumbling across the bed. The cat loved it, and would come charging back either to nip me again or purring away to be petted. After a while, when she would nip me she’d lower her ears and wait, expecting the swat. If it didn’t come, she’d nip me again and duck back, ears down, looking at me until she got it. Then life seemed complete.

After that started that cat became my almost constant companion.

Arf