AT HOME they call me Bus, VanderBus, or Freddy. Sometimes Floof. That last nick refers to my fur. Cats have an average of 60,000 hairs per square inch. In my case, that’s a total of 40 million cat hairs. I have more of them on my tummy than on my back, so it gets hot there. That’s why every now and then I lie down on my back for a little airing.
I am more vulnerable upside down, so I am always on guard. All you see on my feet is soft paws with soft pads. That’s because cats are the only animals that are capable of retracting their nails. When we just walk around, in the house or in the yard or on the street, the nails stay retracted. Dog nails wear off all the time, as do those of wolves and bears. But mine are nonstop sharp as a razor. So when something or someone comes after my belly, my hidden stilettos pop out, boom!
America used to frequently have fighters as president, generals who had fought on a front. But when things got messy, invariably a civilian was in the White House: Lincoln during the Civil War, Woodrow Wilson during the first and Franklin Roosevelt during the second World War. Generals usually did not work out as politicians, except for President Eisenhower, but he was promptly the last one.
Ike was also the last president with red hair. George Washington was a carrot-top, so were Andrew Jackson and Ulysses Grant. All four were wartime generals. You can argue about the precise color of my hair, yellow, orange, red. And I never served in the military. But I am, with twenty built-in razor-sharp knives, the most heavily armed presidential candidate ever. Knife hands. Freddy Krueger. That’s why they call me Freddy back home.
* VanderBus left home at the age of six weeks and went hunting for a city bus in Maine. He caught the bus. It cost him one eye, but he won a standing ovation from everyone who watched him do it. VanderBus, since then mayor of Bicker Hollow, is running for president of the United States.
