Cats on Tuesday: Dirty Harry Pays a Visit

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Dirty Harry, Pooch Extraordinaire

Long ago, when Harry was new, and his faux fur was white and pristine, he sat upon a little girl's pretty pink bedspread in her pretty pink room keeping her dolls and other stuffed animals, company all day long. He knew he was more special than anything else in the girl's room. He had held a secret.

Little Harry, as he was called back then, performed a very special task for the little girl that no other stuffed animal or doll in the room could do. So he was very special and very proud of his unique features. At first glance, he looked like any ordinary, garden variety, stuffed pooch.

His life wasn't very exciting or adventurous, either. But he didn't mind. Wearing pretty dresses, or getting his hair coifed and decorated like the dolls wasn't all that interesting to him anyway. He didn't mind not being included in the little tea parties, and going for rides in the doll carriage, or rocked to sleep in the doll bassinet.

No, Little Harry didn't even mind not being hugged and snuggled like the teddy bears, the kittens or the bunnies that accompanied him on the little girl's bed during the day, or were tucked under the covers with her at night. None of that mattered to him because he had a very special gift and was made with a very special purpose in mind.

Like most little stuffed pooches he had floppy ears, brown pompom eyes and a brown pompom nose, and a tiny little red felt tongue that you could barely see. His two little front paws were pressed together in a manner like prayer. During the day he was as round and fluffy as any stuffed pooch might be. But nighttime was magical. Each night after the little girl's bath, he performed his unique function. He went flat as a pancake. Really flat. Even his head went flat: his eyes bulged, his tongue stuck out, his ears and tail spilled out around him. He could have passed for a pooch rug. But that was alright with him.

You see, Little Harry was called a PJ-Pooch. Instead of having hind legs, he had a large opening that was hidden under his large, fluffy white tail. During the day his small body held the little girl's pajamas, and during the night his little flat body rested upon the nightstand where he could watch over his princess while she slept. Every morning when the little girl got dressed for the day, she stuffed her little pink pajamas back into his fluffy, flat body where he kept them safe for her all during the day.

Nearly three dozen years have passed since he was new, and when the little girl grew, she outgrew Harry. He sat and waited in a little wicker basket as the years passed from one to the next. The house that was once filled with children's laughter, games and going's on, with grandchildren's visits, and grown up company filling the house during holidays, is quiet now. While age as turned the grandmother's hair white as snow, Little Harry, who has long since left the pretty pink bedroom for a place in the little-used family room, has turned dark, tinged with years and years of neglect and dust. The little girls PJ's, long since outgrown, no longer fills his flat little body, just a wad of leftover fiberfill gives him shape.

Dirty Harry, as he's now called, spends his lonely days sitting in his little, brown, wicker basket waiting by the door, waiting for someone to need him again. But age has turned against him, the way it does for all things. His eyes sag a little; his nose hangs by a single thread, his little red tongue leans to one side. He's never seen the inside of a washing machine, or a dryer the way Mike the Mysterious has. Had he, he could have lost an eye or two, or even his nose.

How did it come about then that Dirty Harry came to visit Gretchen, the real flesh and blood cat and her mysterious little fluffhead companion with the melted fur, you ask? It could have been Mike the Mysterious reputation for transmitting deep thoughts to humans, causing the old lady to think about his loneliness. It could have been just that.

For whatever reason, or however it came to be known for the grandmother, with the snow white hair, to come up with the idea to bring Dirty Harry for a visit last Saturday, he is here now and Gretchen has greeted him like family. Dirty Harry, in all his dust colored floofiness, sits amid the rest of the gang, until Saturday comes again.

He's had a marvelous time visiting Gretchen's place, sitting here and there, in his little brown wicker basket. He's had his picture taken, spent the nights talking with Mike about this and that, or whatever it is that cotton headed critters have to talk about. His little girl, now grown, will come for Harry in a few days and take him back to her grannies house, where he will sit and marvel until time takes its toll. Or maybe not, maybe he will come again someday and while away the hours discussing this and that with Gretchen and her fluffhead friends. Maybe someone will sew his nose back in place and give him a bath… anything is possible.