This week I innerviewed an uber cool, adventurous, well-traveled fellow pet, Dinghy Billing: a 4-year-old rescue who grew up in Sturgeon Bay, Wiss-CON-sun, an is beginning a Big Sailing Adventure next year. He sometimes sees himself as a PIE-rat; plays fetch with pipe cleaners; says he’s pretty sure he’s ackshully a cock-a-too; an insists the geckos are greener on the other side of the fence. Dinghy’s stories could fill a whole BOOK. Did I mention he’s a cat?
Me an my assistant didn’t haff to knock, cuz Dinghy an his human greeted us on the shady front padio, with yummy foodstuffs anna silver coffeepot set out onna liddle table. Dinghy was vocal an impressive, ensconced grandly inna screened carriage, looking very hansome indeed: thick white an shiny brown fur, an those miss-TEARY-us, yellow/gold feeline eyes, which (I totally buhleeve) can see what you’re thinkin’.
“Good morning!! Dinghy, I presume?” I said.
Dinghy exited his vehicle an approached (but not too close) for the traditional Sniff-an-Size Up.
He was onna leash, which he didn’t seem to mind.
“Ahoy there, my man. You presume correctly. I am, indeed, Dinghy Billing, an this is my principal human, PJ, whom I frequently refer to as Mommy, or, if we are in a nautical situation, QueenAdmiralHerLadyship. My other human, Captain Paul, remains in Sturgeon Bay building a Very Big Sailboat. He sketched it back in England when he was just 12, an he’s been building it ever since, now with mine and Mommy’s help. I assisted in the duh-ZINE! We should be living aboard by next year, undertaking Very Important Work.”
His eyes turned bright gold an had a faraway look. “I’ve always thought I’d make an excellent PIE-rat: standing at the helm, paws on the wheel, wind in my ears, the boundless sea ahead, mizzening the mast, swabbing the sails, lappin’ up the rum the sailors spill …”
“Woof! Dinghy!”
“Sorry! Got a bit carried away. Ackshully, my human granparents were sailors, too, an they got kidnapped by ackshull PIE-rats. But that’s another story.”
After I got through being speechless, I managed to inquire: “How’d you become a nautical cat in the first place?”
Dinghy settled onto the back of the porch sofa. “I apologize for reclining. I accidentally busted the screen out late yesterday, and over-enjoyed a bit of a night on the town. Now then: I was a rescue kitten at a shelter in Wiss-CON-sun. My future Mommy, meanwhile, had got Very Ill. She had no pet at the time, an she sought a loving companion. For some reason I’ll NEVER understand, she decided to obtain a cockatoo. I mean, a COCKA-too? Seriously? She was just about to walk into the cockatoo store when another lady, somehow ree-lizing she was sick, hollared, ‘DON’T GET THAT BIRD! YOU’LL GET EVEN SICKER! DON’T DO IT!’ She seemed so concerned, Mommy reconsidered. But she still wanted a pet. So she browsed through the locally available kittens and ultimately chose ME. Well, Bonz, when I heard her Back Story, how much she wanted that bird, but ended up with pretty much the opposite of a bird, I began to think that, in some mysterious way, maybe I was ackshully her cockatoo, in the form of a cat!
What do YOU think?”
“Ummm. Errr. That’s SO … in-TREE-ging!” I mumbled.
“Anyway, I grew up in a Vic-TOREE-un MAN-shun in Sturgeon Bay. It had, like, a zillion rooms.
I was never into silly toys, but me an Mommy enjoyed playing Catch with pipe cleaners: FAR more fascinating than mundane balls. At first, before I mastered the Potty Box, I was relegated to just one room, which was BORE-ring. But I learned pretty fast. You see, I am, as are many of the feline purr-suasion, highly intelligent. It didn’t take long for me to have the run of the house.
But THEN, I got totally Out of the Box.”
“How come? Did you start Doin’ Your Duty outside?”
Dinghy laughed. “Not at all.” He pawsed for dramatic effect. “I learned how to use the TOY-let.
Like humans do.”
“Wait. Wha-at? Are you woofin’ me right now?” I asked, lapsing into canine vernacular in my amazement.
Dinghy laughed again. “No. My humans learned about it on YOU TOOB. Didn’t take me too long, either. Look.”
He showed me a coupla phodos. It was TRUE! I hesitated, but I had to know. “Did you learn how to flush?”
“Nope. The YOU TOOB human taught HIS cat to flush, which he found out WASN’T a good idea cuz, while he was at work, his cat played with that flippy thing all day, and his water bill went up to $600!”
I thought I would topple over from laughing. “So, are you excited about being a mariner?”
“Extremely, Bonz. My humans named me Dinghy because, Mommy says, every ship needs a Dinghy. I’ve spent lotsa time working on our boat, mostly in a supervisory capacity, which is when I learned all boats are girls. No clue why. Her name’s S/V Deo Gratis, a 3-masted, 70-foot, steel, Junk-rigged sloop. Capt. Paul’s Incredibly Smart for a human, comes from a sailing famly, so he devised a way that just the three of us, me, QueenAdmiralHerLadyship an him, can sail her. Deo Gratis an Capt. Paul are already fay-MUSS in Sturgeon Bay.”
“So tell me about your coming adventure at sea. What’s the Very Important work that you mentioned?”
“Our plan is to help Humans in Need on pretty but poor EYE-lunds off a country called Hon-DOO-rus. Mommy was there by herself for a long time, onna EYE-lund called Roatan, teaching liddle humans and grown-up ones stuff they need to know to have a better life. We’ll move aboard next year and I’ll probly spend all nine of my lives helping Capt. Paul an QueenAdmiralHerLadyship bring humans and cargo (that’s nautical for STUFF) to help the poor.”
I had wa-ay more questions, but it was time to go. Heading home, I was already thinking about scheduling an off-the-record chat with Dinghy to hear more of his sea stories.
Till next time,