Next To Godliness

Anna doesn't want to have a bath.

There's nothing at all unusual about this - she always puts up a fight, even though she has a pretty good time once she's in the tub. But Anna is a creature of routine (switched at birth, do you think? I did deliver this one in a hospital), and, for almost seven years now, she's been putting up a reasonably well-organized guerrilla resistance at bathtime. So why stop now?

Not the most fragrant of children, my youngest.

Tonight, bathtime came as her daddy and older sister were about to head to the store. Anna wanted to go with them. But this was completely out of the question: it's past bedtime, her hair looks as if a family of wyverns had built a nest in it, and - not to be crude, but there's really no getting around it - she kind of smells like butt.

So they left, and I undressed my screaming, fighting, clawing, three-and-a-half-foot high Antichrist and muscled her into the tub.

Have you ever bathed a yelling child in front of the family cat? Well, I'll tell you what: it freaks the cat out. Think about it. What could a cat find more terrifying than seeing someone else, higher in the family pecking order than he is, screaming like a banshee while the Big Meow pushes her into a tub of that nasty wet stuff that makes your fur all cold and sticky?!?

So my cat Bingo is racing around the house at high velocity, mewing piteously and knocking objects off the bookshelves. If he had opposable thumbs, he'd probably call 911.

Cats have no particular objection to smelling like butt.