A Day in the Life of a Mean Widdle Kid

I know there are some of you out there who remember Red Skelton's Mean Widdle Kid. "If I dood it, I get in trouble....I dood it!"

This has become Dixie's philosophy of life.

Dixie's day begins at 5am - if she has been sequestered in the bathroom for fighting with Scout at midnight, she begins meowing to remind Mom that she was unjustly accused and incarcerated. If she has spent the night freely roaming the house, she pounces on Mom's nose to let her know that the alarm will be going off in a few minutes.

5:15 am, 5:30 am, 5:45 am and 6:00 am - she picks herself up from where Mom has flung her off the bed and marches out of the room in a huff, muttering under her breath.

6:05 am - she walks Mom to the pantry to show her where the cat food is kept. This is not just a walk, but her opportunity to help Mom wake up by creating an obstacle course, weaving into and out of Mom's path as as the aged parent blearily stumbles to the kitchen.

6:30 am - she launches her first attack of the morning on Boo or Scout, whichever one happens to be visiting the litter box. Nothing like freaking out a housemate by springing on them while their attention is otherwise occupied. She has assisted in greatly improving Boo's standing broad jump since she arrived.

6:35 am - she uses the litter box herself and complains about the way that Boo or Scout flung litter all over the room when they departed in haste.

7:00 am - she helps Mom with the ironing of the day's outfit by grabbing the iron cord and biting Mom's toes.

7:01 am - she nimbly dodges Mom's swat at her little hiney.

7:05 am thru approximately 10:30 am - she hounds Scout, chasing and biting and running upstairs and downstairs

10:30 am - nap time, which may last 5 minutes or may last 5 hours. Naps are interspersed with trips to the litter box and assaults on Boo and Scout. Unless Mom is working at home, in which case, she repeatedly lands on the desk and is repeatedly ejected, lands on the work table and watches tv for awhile, and then starts again with landing on the desk and flying through the air away from the desk - until

approx 5:00 pm - Mom gets home from work and it's time to see how many times she can get the poor woman to say "Stop it!" before

7:00 pm - supper time, when it is time to remind Mom repeatedly that it is supper time in a loud and strident voice until Mom gives up and opens a new package of expensive cat food, after being shown again where we keep it, with the weaving in and out of her path, and then sniffing the food and declaring that she's not hungry just yet and will eat later.

8:00 pm until about 10:00 pm - nap time until Mom begins to shut down the house and prepare for bed and trying to time it just right so that at

10:30 pm - when Mom finally gets into bed and settles down with her crossword for the evening, Dixie begins to prowl around the room, getting into the trash, chewing on important papers, jumping up on the bed so that Mojo will chase her off, and finally settling down like she intends to sleep for awhile.

11:00 pm - when Mom turns off the light, gets up and picks a fight with Scout, the object being to see how long it will take Mom to give up and get out of bed and catch one of them.

11:15 pm - settles down in the bathroom to sleep.

It's not easy being a Mean Widdle Kid.

LSW