cat house

I'm sitting at my desk, hard at work, scratching away, planning tonight's class.  It's serious work, you know, very grown-up, all about scheduling and lists and outlining and esoteric science.  I can see all my students in my mind's eye-  I'm imagining them working and trying to anticipate what they'll need. My students are all adults and this is an art therapy session. It's my practicum so I have a lot riding on the successful completion of this. I'm so swirled up in my anxious work, I don't even realize that there is a cat house doing a brisk business just around the corner, just out of reach in my peripheral vision. 

Okay, it's not a REAL cat house in the traditional sense of the words but it is a cat house in the innocent sense of the words.  The six-year-old with the blunty scissors has fashioned a house for the cats out of a cardboard box.  He's cut lots of windows and drawn LOTS of pictures of cats on the outside.  Inside, though, is where the action is.  Inside is a tidy row of little cups alternating cat food, water, cat food, water, cat food. There's a line of cats waiting to get it.  (we only have two but it's more fun to imagine more).  They're reaching in through the windows trying to get at the food.  He's trying to get them to sign contracts or something before he lets them in.  A lease?  I don't know.  He's trying to get them to promise not to trash the place, not to tip the water, not to fuss over the food.  They just want IN. 

Uh oh, here comes a dog!