Technicolor Dream

            Someone from Grinnell had contacted me, and we were meeting for a drink.  (Mine was water.)

            As we made small talk waiting in line, I kept trying to figure out if I had known the person during my four years at Grinnell College.   She was talking ever-so-fondly about her partner, who was at a business dinner.   She explained how they had been turned down for adoption and how desperately her partner wanted children because she grew up in a houseful of kids.

            Finally we were seated, and the server took our orders.  I began to worry about getting home in time to make dinner for Mom and John.

            As we visited, I started to have a very difficult time speaking.  I felt so weary and sluggish.  As I mispronounced words, I wondered if the server thought I was drunk.  But that couldn’t be—I was only drinking water.   I invited my new friend from Grinnell to come see my brother’s cougars.

            The floor entertainment kept distracting me.  There were tiny clay-made animals as well as a clay-made baby who, in very life-like fashion, was grabbing at a ball on a string.  The most intriguing part was that, occasionally, the figures would dissolve into little rolling pebbles of clay and then spontaneously re-form into their shapes.

            At some point, I suddenly realized that my new Grinnell friend was not a human being but a cat.  She had gorgeous, silky psychedelic fur (which, come to think of it, looked a lot like my slippers) and was definitely Persian.  I had never seen such glorious colors on a cat--hot pink, flashy orange, crimson red, deep purple—and asked how she colored her fur.  I don’t remember her reply.  Now her comments about her partner made more sense—she, too, was a cat!  Of course, she had grown up in a houseful of cats with numerous litters of “kits.”

            By this time, I felt like my body was made of sludgy cement.  I was lying down on my side of the booth and couldn’t seem to sit up.  This was getting embarrassing.  My Grinnell cat-friend decided that what I needed was a head massage.  I thought to myself, “Well, isn’t this strange?  Instead of me petting the cat’s fur, the cat is petting my head.”  Eventually, she helped me sit up.  I realized I was already thirty minutes late for dinner.  The server came over and poured coffee on my lapel pin to take out the stain where I had spilled some water.