hahahha That is so funny. You gotta wonder...

My cat was 11 years old when I got him (one year ago exactly - I got him on June 21)- he was a one-owner cat whose family had discovered that one of their adopted boys was allergic to him. My point is that archy (There had been a Mehitabel but she came to a fittingly bad end, they told me) was a well loved cat with habits and quirks and foibles of his oen.

One of his habits is to lie on one's lap and extend his paws up to one's face to sleep. It's a very confiding gesture that charms the socks off one.

However from time to time he has hooked his claws into my face. One night he did that- just enough to hurt - and I moved his feet away. He did it again and I told him NO, moved them again and held them together away from me. He growled and wrenched them away and up to my face and held on.

This time I said, NO, and with one finger rapped his nose. With a yowp he jumped off my lap and off the chair. I hadn't had him long and I thought, Oh, dear, he's not going to forgive that.

But he didn't take even one step away. He stood beside my chair thinking deeply. Suddenly he turned and leaped up to my lap and murmuring under his breath he rubbed his head under my chin. When I petted him, he lay down and reached up his paws. Like velvet, they were.