Column: Cow-colored devil with an angel’s face dupes his sitters

Since the end of February, when our daughter, Sylvia, headed west for a three-season internship at a national park, Kristin and I have been babysitting her beloved cat, One-nostril Newt. Over the past six months, we have fed, watered and dutifully scooped the poop of “her baby" on a daily basis.

With that same frequency, we have indulged Sylvia’s requests to send her (as she puts it) “pictures of my son." Consequently, I now have upwards of a thousand images of a pudgy, mildly deformed “cow cat” cluttering the photos file of my iPhone. Per Sylvia’s request, each photo must be taken in real time, ostensibly to prove he’s still alive: Here’s Newt lying on the stairs. Here’s Newt lounging on the couch. Here’s Newt with his leg behind his ear, cleaning his butt. In each shot, the cat wears the same brainless look of round-eyed, startled surprise.

For a good while, I presumed that Newt was a bit touched. Given the basics of biology, it wasn’t much of a stretch to conclude that his status as the runt of the litter had denied him a proper “place at the table.” Therefore, access to proper nutrition was likely limited as his tiny brain was developing. Thus deprived, I theorized, Newt had grown to full adult cathood with the mind of a mere kitten.

The cat invariably appears to have just awakened from some dangerous dream to find himself at the center of a dubious situation; inexplicably standing on the kitchen counter near a tipped glass and a puddle of water, or crouching over the tooth-scarred remains of one of Kristin’s house plants. Newt has, on more than one occasion, even been shocked to wake up in the center of a sea of his own food after its canister had “spontaneously fallen” from the high shelf upon which it was kept.

It wasn’t until last week that we discovered that we had been being played by a criminal mastermind with the face of a mutant cherub. One-nostril Newt, it turns out, is a deviant savant!

The revelation came after having suffered through a weeks-long series of overnight bumps, thumps and yowls to which Kristin and I responded by locking up the perpetrators (Newt, along with our own two cats, Moses and Binx) each night in their own collective space. As lock-ups go, it is pretty much a “Club Fed” experience—minimum security with all of the creatures’ needs and comforts met fully as they freely roam about the entire basement and half of the first floor of our home.

Some souls, however, are simply meant to be free. Within a few nights, Newt began appearing at our bedside in the middle of the night, having somehow ghosted through a closed door.

We doubled down and increased security to include two closed doors through which the cat must pass to find freedom. It took Newt less than two nights to crack the code, and we remain utterly and totally perplexed by his escapes. Even more worrisome than his nightly forays about the house, Newt now seems to have developed the ability to transport himself into the outdoor world—a fully forbidden no-no for cats under my keep!

I scold wildly, but in every situation, his goofball expression remains the same! It might be time to transfer Mutant Newt out of his cushy incarceration and go full supermax on this felonious feline!

Kristin and John Lorson would love to hear from you. Write Drawing Laughter, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email John at jlorson@alonovus.com.