Cosmo our middle cat doesn’t like to be touched. If he’s standing there and you try to pet him, he does this limbo-dance thing where his front and rear remain more or less where they were, but his middle part disappears, sinking way down to the floor. If you keep up the petting he will slink away in that position. As you can imagine this results in me petting him a lot when I’m bored.

I can also mimic the movement he makes, doing a funny walk with my back swayed. This may not sound like much, but it gets a lot of laughs around the house. I do the walk and ask, “What animal is this?” and one of the girls shouts, “Cosmo!” It no longer makes them squirt liquids out their noses, but it’s still good for a chuckle.

This morning Beta and I were visiting Gamma in the hospital. It was very quiet, way before official visiting hours, and Beta, who is 12 and sensitive about such things, told me that my shoes were making too much noise in the empty corridors. So I did the “What animal is this?” walk on tippy-toes down the hall. The look on her face, a mixture of amazement, shock and glee, made my morning.

It’s important to be able to shock one’s children.