the buddy system
If ever there were words that constituted an abomination to utter in the same sentence, they would be “J.B. Fitzgerald” and “camping”. Nonetheless, as a child, I found myself dragged into the occasional mandatory outdoor-living excursion. I tried to take my case to the International Criminal Court, but, apparently, singing Kumbaya around a crackling fire while toasting marshmallows on a disgusting stick didn’t quite hit the mark as a crime against humanity. My one camping takeaway, however, was that, while pretending it was perfectly normal to live like a raccoon in the woods, every aspect of one’s existence was to be carried out via The Buddy System. Wasn’t that just the cherry on the sunken, fire-scorched cake? I couldn’t even glean a moment’s privacy for a pee.
Over the last few weeks I’ve been reminded of The Buddy System, yet in a completely different context. If you’ve been following the saga of our resident feral cats, you already know there is one—the very petite Miss Malcolm—who has taken to escorting Maisie to the end of the driveway (or, in today's case, halfway around our loop) whenever we depart for our dog’s daily walks. The gray-striped cat will even lurk roadside, on nearby properties, to watch for our homecoming, at which point she races to the door to greet us. This girl has claimed us with a vehemence we’ve never witnessed in the many feral felines that have passed through our lives and property over the years. Despite the neighbor dogs who chase and harass her, she has formed an inexplicable bond with our Maisie, taking The Buddy System to whole new cherry-topper extremes.
Like her unhappy-camper mommy many decades before, Maisie can no longer relieve herself without a companion. Miss Malcolm escorts our eighty-pound dog into the yard. She may not understand why her canine buddy takes so long to find the right spot, but, when Maisie does, the cat squats down nearby, as if the two of them were girlfriends off on a restroom break together, only without the shared lipstick or gossip or partitions between the stalls. I’ve witnessed a fair number of unusual cat-dog bonding scenarios in my lifetime, but the animal resurrection of The Buddy System—that one truly takes the fire-scorched cake.