Want a scrub, Guv?

When I was in the shiny new Boots in Bath the other week, navigating an off-beat route through the aisles so that I would not interfere with a brigade of formidable shelf-stacking staff, who can frighten the bravest of shoppers into submission, I heard a quiet voice emanating from the assorted foot care hardware shelf.

Want a scrub, Guv?, followed by a dull bump, which came from the small, mouse-shaped item on a rope tail landing in my basket. I swear it was not an accident. He had thrown himself from the shelf audaciously, facing certain death if he had missed the safe heaven of my wire basket.

Ouch.

You have to admire the bravery of such action.

I do not really have much use for a pumice stone but he looked so innocent and inexperienced that I could not bring myself to returning him to the shelf. He might feel rejected and rejection can do a lot of mental damage to a youngster just starting out in life.

Pumice is volcanic rock, a solidified, frothy lava. He could have recently been evicted from Eyjafjallajökull. I cannot be passive in the face of homelessness, so I took young Pumice to a nurturing home; mine. Young is obviously a misnomer for a pumice stone. It is made out of stuff probably millions of years old or thereabouts. Homelessness for the elderly, even worse!

Kaspar is the one of my cats, who is most likely to acquire assorted objects.

“Leave the cable release, Kaspar, I still need it!”
You have to learn to let go of the reactionary notion of ownership. Do you want to borrow my sock?
“Which sock?”
The one that I found this morning in the washing pile.

The pumice stone, who only a few weeks ago had no idea, what life had planned for him, is now good friends with my cats Kaspar, Camillo and Domino. Together they traverse the house, joined by his rope tail, navigate the stairs, play hide and seek and generally have a whale of a time before falling asleep together exhaustedly.

Pumice now lodges in my airing cupboard when he is not busy living it up with my cats. I suppose I should find him a name. After all, he is one of the family now.

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