Don't Call Me Ishmael: Percy and the soft topper

Clearly posing

No one knows when a cat might find joy. Sometimes that pleasure arrived in the oddest places.

Everyday rolling

Percy liked to roll around. He would drop onto pavement or the living room floor when presented cat nip. He would roll on the porch, sometimes to blot out the scent of another cat. But he had a clear favorite with a short prime.

In his free-roaming days, Percy would stay close if people came over to the house. He was curious. At one party where we consumed a copious amount of wine, he dutifully sniffed car tires and drawing attention for his simple presence.

One of my Grand Cru coworkers, JM, used to cook for these group dinners that rotated hosting duties When it came around to me, Percy got an unexpected treat that had nothing to do with the dinner table. It had to be special to lure him away from new people in his house.

JM drove a Jeep with a soft topper. First time the group comes over, I look outside to see Percy standing first on the hood of JM’s Jeep, then moving to the soft topper, where the real adventure began.

Within a few minutes, I spotted him rolling furiously on the Jeep's soft top. It was this amazing discovery, that car roofs could be fun. He stayed up there for hours. Subsequent dinners found Percy back on the soft topper.

What possessed him, I’ll never know. Maybe he was swept up by the comfort of a new outdoor surface. Maybe he had new perspective on his yard. Maybe it just felt good.

One time we had a dinner and rain poured the entire night, so I was hoping he would not roll on it. Instead he spent the entire evening underneath the Jeep - the tires were tall enough he could stand, walk around and stay dry. He finally ventured in once the Nashville rain softened briefly.

Perhaps I should have bought a Jeep when my previous car died. Percy would have had a refuge in the yard. However, his claws would have made short work of that soft top if he had regular access.

Schedules made the dinners end after a while. Percy never came so close to a Jeep again. Almost daily times he fell to the ground and thrashed on his back. In spring, he would dirty his coat until he looked like a calico. Those rolling escapades were always funny, but nothing touches Percy’s inspired afternoon on the soft topper.