“Oh, I’m such a stinky little cat. Stinky, stinky, stinky!”

Jang had forgotten to use the litter box again and was beside himself with shame. Six months of potty training and he still made a mess this morning on the kitchen floor. 

What will the others think?

A moment later, the answer came…

“Jang, have you lost your mind?! Our humans will stop feeding us. They’ll throw us outside to hunt rabbits. We’ll starve!”

Able to hear predators from 3.14159265 miles, Rudy Cotton made plans to move his family back into the woods. Human gardens were tempting, yes, but a wise father always weighs the risk/reward ratio of any good thing. 

“All the summer carrots in the world can’t atone for a pride of vicious predators poised to pounce,” he reasoned.

And so Rudy was off to consult Gramps on his plan to move back home…

The old rabbit spoke carefully. “Voices of the future have you heard.” He waddled over to the refrigerator. “Fleeing from danger, are you? But into greater danger will you run, my young Rudi.” Gramps stroked his whiskered chin. “Consider the sea turtle…” 

“Born is she, beneath gull and talon. Into dark waters she must flee. But swallowed there she be, by fanged monsters and the finned. And so should she wonder, ‘If from the beach I had not wandered, living would I now be?'”

“Stop trying to sound like Yoda, Gramps.” Rudy could take only so much. 

“You’re not even doing it right,” Rudy said, but as fast as he’d said it, he wished he hadn’t.

“I’m sorry, Gramps. Your Yoda is OK… No, really.”

And so Rudy, Gramps and the whole Cotton family carried all their things back into the woods.

Meanwhile, Jang the Careful redoubled his effort to use the litter box.

And forever after, he stayed strictly out of trouble with his human family.

“For caution is the very signature of wisdom,” he would often say.

The end.

…

M. Talmage Moorehead