Down the pitch Oliver Oklahoma! makes a darting run. Gooooooooooooooooooooal!

Having been warned that the name of this blog was a slippery slope down which I could so easily slide into the ghetto of encapsulated Catmania, I have carefully excluded cat mentions, cat references and cat kudos from these pages these many weeks. I have not let the hairball wag the cat, as it were. I think the blogosphere has appreciated my restraint. If you Google the Ten Top Cat Blogs of All Time, you will not find Darwin's Cat, which you would if I chose to "cat it up."

Because I can cat it up, baby.

As I result of my restraint, I thought this blog had achieved a perfect equilibrium, a Zen stillness of energy in counterpoise with wisdom. And then I discovered one of our cats, apparently miffed, had hired a flack.
I discovered this when I started to get press releases from Mark Satan, who is apparently a partner in the public relations firm of Satan, Satan, Devil, Demon, Dybbuk, Bush and Codpiece. The first release -- snail mail, 37-cent Eubie Blake commemorative stamp -- said, "Like the legendary Brazilian soccer stars Pele, Kaka and Robinho, local cat personality Oliver is known by but a single name."

Well, what?

There wasn't even a news hook, no context, no nothing. I was tempted to tell Oliver he was wasting his money, but it's his money. And who am I to interfere with someone else's pursuit of a livelihood when, at the end of the day, no harm is done except the osmotic transfer of excess capital? That's why when I am reading a newspaper on the bus or on BART, as I finish a page I ball it up and throw it on the floor, to keep the unions working.

The second release was a little better. It began, "Heard around town: Local cat Oliver commenting, 'It's a little embarrassing being named after a Broadway musical. It could have been worse. I could have been named Oklahoma!'" That wasn't so bad. Adding the phrase, "Over martinis at Haight Street's fabled Persian Aub Zam Zam..." would have given it a little texture, painted in a little background, created a little synergy with another client. But even without that, it read like an item. I was tempted to drop Mark Satan a note, saying, "Try Leah Garchik." Tempted -- but no. Not funny enough. I'm no Herb Caen, but I can tell snap from crackle and crackle from pop.

Still, just when you think some PR guy is really a fool, he will surprise you. Yesterday I got a 2-pound box of See's assorted chocolates with a hand-written note: "What about the rat?"

When there really is a story, that's all it takes when you are dealing with a trained professional journalist who has seen enough and perhaps too much.

What about the rat?

Faithful readers recall when Oliver discovered we had a "mouse" -- for that is what I insisted in the face of my wife's repeated RATRATRATRAT -- back in November. At first I though he killed it or chased it away, but then something started shredding the butter cookies and invading the instant cocoa. And, man, those little turds. It was clear Oliver wasn't up to rodent elimination, either because of an innate pacifism or perhaps a deep world-weariness that the cynic will dismiss as incompetence. Anyway, I went through a series of traps: the little grey plastic "safe capture" traps; the easy-disposal kill trap with the tiny door through which the mouse is supposed to enter while the other mice sing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"; the regular old-fashioned Victor-brand spring-loaded skull crusher, all of which my wife said would not work because they were too small, given the fact she knows rat turds when she sees them.

Finally, in what seemed an effort to taunt us, the rodent started depositing his little raisins on top of our rollout cupboard for all to see. I put one of the old-fashioned traps up there. This was maybe ten days ago. Next morning around 6 a.m. well before sunrise, I was awakened by Oliver going through a whole series of vocalizations, sounds never heard before, as if he were speaking in tongues. I turned on the light and there on the floor was a juvenile rat, much too large for the safe-capture trap or the disposable trap with the little mouse door.

"Good job! Oliver. Good job!"

The rat, stunned but alive, was disposed of. Oliver was fed the choicest tidbits. Splendid cat who lulled the rat into false complacency and then struck with the precision of an atomic clock! But then when we got up for the day, new evidence was discovered that does not disgrace Oliver but certainly makes it less likely we will try to get him an audition for RatMaster 2: Death Purr.

I saw that the small trap on top of the cupboard had snapped. Caught between its wooden base and its spring-powered cudgel was a single rodent hair. And so we pieced the story together.

1) The rat advances, attracted by the peanut butter I had placed as bait.

2) The trap closes, too small to kill but certainly able to stun.

3) Oliver, drawn by the sound or loitering nearby, suddenly sees a semi-conscious rat come raining down like manna -- or pennies; pick your fantasy -- from heaven.

I would rather it were otherwise. I would rather Oliver had like Achilles before the walls of Troy at last from his tent emerged to slay his enemy. But it appears that, more like Falstaff in Henry IV, Part One, he merely confronted a prostrate adversary and struck an irrelevant blow.

For all I know, it was a Midnight Cowboy thing, and he was bringing the rat to me for immediate medical attention. Cue the lyrics to Lili Marlene.

It's finally all a mystery, isn't it? Mark Satan had it right. Sometimes all you can do is ask the question.

What about the rat? What about the rat?