Wusser Britches Goes Shopping

Douglas Milburn

Though Wusser Britches thought she knew every square inch of her commodious domicile, late one night she discovered a wonderful new place to sleep. Tucked far back in the corner of the kitchen pantry, it was her Large Female Human’s two-wheel shopping cart, in the bottom of which the human kept a pink cardigan because the supermarket air conditioning was, as she put it, "arctic."

Wusser Britches first sniffed the sweater through the wire mesh. Then, having identified the owner, she with one graceful leap bounded into the cart, snuggled under the cardigan and snoozed away.

You can imagine Wusser Britches’s displeasure when she was awakened the next morning by a hard BUMP-BUMP as Large Female Human towed the cart down the front steps on the way to a bit of shopping. No dummy, Wusser Britches didn’t move a whisker, waiting to see what was what. Between the folds of the sweater she saw sidewalk whooshing away just a few inches from her nose, which in turn was overcome by a positive rainbow of new, quickly changing odors.

What is this, thought Wusser Britches. Have I died and gone to cat heaven?

No, it was just her neighborhood which she’d never had such ready and rapid access to before.

On they went. BUMP-BUMP down curbs and up curbs, and finally through noisy doors into… WINTER. Wusser Britches of course didn’t know about the Arctic, but she knew about winter, and this was definitely winter. She was grateful for her own thick coat, and for the layers of sweater in which she still snuggled, motionless.

The little wheels of the cart whirred along nicely now on a smooth surface and Wusser Britches was enjoying a whole new array of odors—Fish? could it be???—when something large and hard and with corners fell on her from above: THUNK! A few seconds passed and here came another one: THUNK!
This would not do. With a simple, super-quick uncoiling upward leap, Wusser Britches cleared the sweater and the packages and the edge of the cart and landed neatly on all fours in the slick shiny aisle of the supermarket.

Busy elsewhere, her Large Female Human didn’t notice. In a blink, Wusser Britches was off because there was no doubt about what her nose was telling her: THAT WAY IS FISH!

Arriving at the end of the aisle, Wusser Britches tried a hard right turn only to find herself sliding straight on in the same direction she had been running. In spite of some very busy clawing, her slide continued until—THWOMP—she came up against the bottom of a large refrigerator case.

Wusser Britches carefully re-arranged her feet, checked with her nose—FISH THAT WAY—and this time more gingerly set off toward nirvana. TAP-TAP-TAP, she was making good progress until she was interrupted by a large silver basket propelled by one large human and one small one which, her nose instantly told her, she did not know. The large silvery thing was coming right at her!

What to do? She couldn’t run because of the slippery floor.

When in doubt, jump.

Wusser Britches jumped STRAIGHT UP, a good four feet. Then several things happened at once. Wusser Britches found herself now IN the large silver basket among an assortment of the weirdest odors she’d ever experienced. Both humans, the large and the small, yelped, "There’s a cat in our cart!" And one of them gave Wusser Britches’s new vehicle a hefty shove. Which sent it and her careening into one of those lovingly created pyramids of canned goods that supermarket clerks never seem to tire of constructing.

Cart and cat struck the pyramid with a loud CRASH and soon the pyramid was no more.

When everything came to rest, Wusser Britches found herself half buried in tins of tuna (if only she’d known!). Nothing to do again but JUMP!

Up she went, down she came clear of the mess, and off she went in search of her own private human. Now she didn’t so much run as scamper, carefully gauging her speed in corners, quickly becoming (though of course she didn’t know this) a master of the four-paw drift.
At last, up one aisle she spotted her own two-wheel cart and sniffed the odor of her human attendant. Pat-pat-pat, one small leap, and she was settled safely and cozily in the bottom under the familiar warmth and smell of the sweater.

Wusser Britches sighed deeply and closed her eyes, her deep cat knowledge telling her the greatest bit of cat wisdom: When in doubt, sleep.

For she was confident that when she opened her eyes again, she would find herself back in her own kingdom and once again mistress of all she surveyed.

Wusser Britches Goes to Church>>

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