Spoonerisms: Attention Dial Tone

In that twilight between sleep and wakefulness, my brain does strange things. Well, even more than normal. This morning, as soon as I began to stir, Dipity was on me. She and Spoon had had a very noisy row at 6AM so, even though it wasn't his "fault," per se, I closed Spoon out of the bedroom/bathroom area so they wouldn't wake the neighbors and so I could get more sleep. This left Dipity cut off from the food in the kitchen, so a few hours later, she was doing the Feed Me Cha-Cha. She was purring and snuggling, but it was in that high-energy, "I don't really want you to pet me, but I thought this was the best way to get your attention" way. I scratched her head and thought about how, while we probably most often associate purring with a happy cat, they actually use it for a lot of things. Yes, it's a bonding tool, but they also purr when they want attention and sometimes when they're afraid. Biologists think it may also aid in healing. Even the big cats purr, but because of the physiological changes made to their vocal chords so they could roar, they only purr on exhalation, unlike housecats, which have the duplex purr function. As Dipity was using the attention purr, it occurred to me her purr was a lot like a modem operating somewhere between 25 and 150 baud, and she had just issued the ATDT command: Attention Dial Tone.

Knowing she wasn't going to let me get more sleep, I got up and opened the door and she was in the kitchen like a rocket.