Choose your own joke!

Pillow is fixed, and I’m still

• broke.
• variable.
• floating.

(He’s hiding under my bed.)

We have reluctantly concluded that Pillow brings more chaos into our household than we need.

Pillow has a new trick: when he wants me to play with him, he approaches my chair and taps at my waist or elbow.

A bit of laser-chasing satisfies him for a little while.

Pillow spends much of a typical day on my bed; when I find him there, I tussle with him. Now I have clear evidence that he enjoys these little skirmishes: whenever I go to that room (except at bedtime), he eagerly follows me in and jumps onto the bed.

Yet he never approaches me when I’m not on my feet.

Fluffie, alas, is less friendly to me since Pillow joined us. She still visits me in bed but never jumps on my lap anymore.

Pillow has taken up hunting the human ankles that pass by. He’s quite the ankle tom.

Fluffie (age 12 years) continues to snub Pillow (age 5 months).

Last evening Pillow sneaked up behind where Fluffie was sitting, reached out and tapped her on the head. Fluffie merely got up and walked away.

Watching Pillow on patrol, guarding the hearth against MLO (mouse-like objects), stirs a tickle in my mind: About thirty years ago was there a long-running ad campaign, for some luxury good, that featured a black panther? Or have I imagined it, mutating the Blackglama “what becomes a legend most” campaign in which black fur was itself the product?

(Do I still have any issues of Scientific American from that period?)