On Sufferance
The cat says, “I’m only here on sufferance.” The dog doesn’t understand, so the cat defines the word sufferance. It has to do with a kind of tolerance. It has to do with permission that is only indirect, permission through failure to prohibit. She uses the word tacit. The dog doesn’t understand tacit. The cat gives up. She thinks he probably got the idea anyway.
The cat knows they love the dog and merely tolerate her. There is enthusiasm when they greet the dog at the front door. She sits off in the background, watching. They see her and say, “Hello, kitty!” but without much warmth. The dog is more demonstrative than she is. He wouldn’t understand the word demonstrative, though he enacts it. (He wouldn’t understand the word enact.)
Later, the cat says to the dog, who stands below her, in the kitchen, sniffing the air, “Now she has left the room. I’m sitting within an inch of her chicken sandwich. That puts a strain on me.” She reaches out a forepaw and touches the sandwich, but she is not comfortable.
The dog likes her and is interested in her. Although he doesn’t know the word strain, he would not find it a strain to be near the chicken sandwich.
Then she says she has trouble with her salivary glands in certain situations and can’t help opening and closing her mouth.
Later the cat is chewing on the broom again.
The dog does not understand why she would do that.
The cat says, “She scolds me because I’ve been chewing on the broom. She leaves it out and I see it. Then she sees me chewing on it and comes and puts it away between the refrigerator and the wall where I can’t get at it, though I try. I try when it seems to be where I can reach it.”
The dog listens to her explain all this. At least it is a change from going back to sleep again in that pool of sunlight, as he has been doing from time to time all morning, as it shifts across the floor.
