Tales from the Walauwa:

How Ma gets hooked to football

by Cat O Logge

I am not in a very good mood, if you really want to know that is. How a cat is supposed to get about his work without a good night's sleep is quite beyond me. The walauwa household has been watching the football world cup matches the past couple of weeks and for the nine lives of me I cannot fathom why anyone would want to play sports so late at night, but apparently that is exactly what happens.

And my grandfather told me once that humans can't see well in the dark even though we cats can. This doesn't bother Rudolphus in the least you see. The idiot sleeps through the day as well when the walauwa is at its noisiest (Leela and Magilin are not required to keep quite), so he sleeps peacefully through the matches too.

It seems that only mother of the house shares my sentiments. She is constantly asking everyone to go to sleep, that you can always watch the replay the next day at a more decent hour. But as usual her eldest son just had to say that it really is no use cheering at a replay because the game has already been played.

Deflated symphony

Mother of the house didn't bear children with such comebacks without being able to tackle a few comebacks herself (even a cat could see that the elder son's argument was not entirely foolproof), but daughter of the house came screaming in to the room crying "Oh it's Ronaldo!!!", I suppose she was just trying to make me jealous, however everyone else just asked her to shut up because Ronaldo can't win by himself, hasn't shot a single goal in Germany this time, has he?

But seated in a chair in a corner, she went on mumbling that name to herself. Everyone except for mother of the house was seated by the telly. The youngest son was yawning away, but surprisingly wide awake. All at once everyone said 'oh' in a rather deflated symphony.

There were all sorts of comments coming from each person, expert opinions of those who had never really played the game. Everything was rather quiet for a while and I was just drifting off to sleep dreaming delightful dreams of fish and Pala tripping over the carpet.

Daughter of the house suddenly yelled very loudly and the others just sat around saying yes, that certainly was a good shot, what with his head and all. But mother of the house who had been trying to sleep in her room came out in a rather spectacular huff and asked her daughter to please keep the noise down and goodness knows why someone can't pick that ball up and simply throw it into the net.

Good question, I thought. But apparently the others didn't think so because it brought loud laughter and more screaming from everyone. But I haven't lived in the walauwa household without knowing that you don't really get away with laughing at mother of the house.

So with my ears pointing up I waited for her to switch off the television. But although a cat has nine lives the same can't be said for his luck because the next thing I saw from my corner was mother of the house sitting down with the rest of the screaming lot in the living room. I hissed audibly, but I should have simply saved my breath.

My view

"So who is in yellow?' asked the mother "Brazil" answered her daughter, but in a very weird dreamy sort of voice. "Amma don't you just love their t-shirts? Amanda and I are thinking of buying two..." "What? That yellow? Nonsense... fine things your daughter comes up with..." said mother addressing herself to father.

"Look another goal look, look..." this time mother too was screaming. The only sane person in the family had been won over by the evil forces in front of the television. I can't wait for all this to be over. I'm sure that cats all over the country think so too.