The Cat as The Great Communicator

An epiphany struck at about 3:00 AM, or maybe it was a paw upside the head... I couldn't tell. I was asleep at the time. Anyway, it was a breakthrough.

I'd already ascertained that The Cat communicates through a combination of purrs, stares, growls, yelps and Congressional memoranda. Nobody thinks natively in five-bit code, unless you spent your formative years as a teletype operator (or as a cat).

BUT! As a matter of fact, I did spend several years working with teletype, so it was with great surprise that my barely awake brain recognized her communications pattern as nothing short of original Baudot!

Matters not that Western Union dropped out a few characters and tightened up the whole thing into ITA2 (which some of us elders still insist on referring to as Baudot code, even though it isn't).

The Cat will deploy claws and embed her message in my chest, tummy, arm or leg in a rapid vertical pressure-point pattern that resembles the venerable five-bit original as invented by Emile Baudot. The Cat alternates paws to communicate rapidly.

So all this was trudging through my mind for some inane reason, as I struggled out of comfortable sleep and into whatever passes for wakefulness at 3:02 AM when being wakened by a cat sitting on my chest and typing in five-bit Baudot with the speed of a seasoned World War II news correspondent.

What on earth could The Cat want at 3:05 AM in the morning when I'd just said good night to her at 2:15 AM? Just passing by noticed you had let your eyes closed and wanted to make sure all was well besides it will be dawn in less than four more hours at which time you will need to arise anyway to get my tuna onto its plate fill my water bowl again open the dishwasher so I can look inside open the pantry door so I can look inside open the closet door so I can look inside refill the dry food dish since I will have emptied it out by then open the front door so I can freak out then try to work up the courage to go outside then race back inside retrieve the new tennis ball from where I knocked it under the recliner get the golf ball unstuck from the refrigerator grill where I managed to wedge it by mistake - or were you sleeping? sorry.