Best friends, for 15 minutes.

     A couple months back, my gentleman and I bought an automatic laser kitty toy to keep his cat busy. She is decidedly of the portly persuasion, and we figured that we'd be able to turn the toy on while we were busy, and she could chase the laser around for exercise. There was a bit of a problem at first with getting it to sit correctly so it didn't either go all over the wall and furniture (where she'd either ignore it or claw the furniture to pieces), but a convenient roll of duct tape serves to keep the thing balanced nicely. While it's a little loud, it's nice to know that kitty can play on her own while we get things done.

     Kitty has learned that the "click!" of it starting means there's a red dot to play with, and comes running. She's oddly shy about batting after it when we're around, but since the toy has a 15 minute timer on it, we just turn it on, walk away, and let her at it.

     The other day, I happened to be just one room away while the toy was working its magic on kitty, and I'd tuned out the noise it makes. I was pretty engrossed in what I was doing, and was slightly disoriented when the noise suddenly stopped. It took me a second to realize the timer had been tripped, and the toy was turned off. I was about to get back to work when I heard a single, soft, sad little "meow…" of kitty realizing her playmate had vanished again.

     Who knew an automated laser could have such an affect? I went and turned it back on, and she promptly ignored both it and me. At least until I left the room.