A Prairie Home Companion from American Public Media: First Person

Timex the Prophetic Cat
by Milo Ketchum
June 20, 2007

Timex was a stray that earned his name by default. He was originally just Tom, but our five kids wagged him around constantly with stub tail straining and tufted ears laid flat against his stripes. He proved beyond doubt that he could take a lickin' and keep on tickin'. He was half Bobcat and the other half what we call a "Ditto Kitty"; that's the breed with short hair and stripes. I coined this nickname when I saw a herd of them sitting on the front porch of the "Cat Lady's" house. It appeared they had been produced by a cat duplicating machine.

Timex had a strange bent. Every morning he would sit at the kitchen door and "Arroowoah" in his low mournful half bobcat voice to be let in. He would dash to the next closed door inside the house and sit in front of it and "Arroowoah" until someone would open it. He went around the entire house yelling at each closed door and end up right back outdoors through the kitchen door he came through first! The next day he would return and repeat the odd performance. This routine went on for weeks and Timex would entertain our friends and neighbors. One of the many who witnessed the cat act was a close friend that was a Missionary. After observing the performance on several occasions he said solemnly, I wonder what that stupid cat is trying to tell us.

That night I lay in bed going over the day's activities and it flushed over me!

Walk through the open doors?

Timex never returned.

About the author:
Spent my teen years in Mound Minnesota. Still married to my first wife for 35 years. I point for a living now and fly my J3-Kitty when it's not in the shop. May they extract my charred body from the wreckage when I die at 95 of natural causes at 5000 feet on a clear and cloudless day.