Frankie Weiss and Her Magic

The Fly That Did Not Get Away

Frankie and Johnnie are two frisky cats less than one year old when the front door bell rings. Immediately they go into guard mode, what is this doorbell ringing?

The USP driver was delivering a package. I opened the front and storm door to sign his receipt book in my accepting the package. This was sometime in April, Unknowingly to me, a horse fly made its entrance into the house. But the fly did not escape the cats’ attention.

Going about my business at hand, I returned to the kitchen. Usually Frankie and Johnnie are underfoot and have to see what Mr. Mom is doing and can they help? My cats were not around. This was highly unusual. They did not run out of the house when the doors were opened. Where did they go and what kind of mischief did these cats get into? I went looking for them, they were not on the ground floor and coming back upstairs they were not in the living room, dining, bedroom or bathrooms and not in any of the hall closets. Finally, I went into the little den off the bedroom, success!

Frankie was on the arm of my favorite sitting chair, while agitated Johnnie was atop the cushion on a storage area I built when we first moved into the house. Both cats, faces looking at the window shade, were going wild. Shooing them out of the den, I went back to the kitchen. As soon as my back was turned, they scampered (ran) back into the den taking up their former positions.

I still had not learned enough to clue me in on their behavior in the short five months we merged into a loving family. Finally it dawned on me they were looking at the window shade, I raised it, and a horse fly was buzzing around, desperately, trying to escape from a closed window. From the cats view, who and what was this thing invading their home. No wonder they were going bonkers.

Now knowing what was happening, I let them be and went back into the kitchen to finish what I had been doing before the USP man rang the doorbell. Had Frankie or Johnnie been able to get at the fly, I’m sure its natural life would have been short lived. Some time later, hunger took over; the fly no longer interested them.

As it was, the next morning I raised the window shade, the fly was lying on its back, alongside the window latch. It had perished in its ordeal trying to escape.

The lesson learned; Frankie and Johnnie, their jungle instincts still intact, were protecting their territory, home and Mr. Mom.