I Am Touched

By Jim Hagarty
2013

The house is pretty quiet here every weekday. I am all alone. I don’t even have any music playing. I just sit at my desk bearing down intently on work I do on the computer.

At some point almost every day, I feel someone touch me on the upper back. SCREAM! There is nobody else here but me!

It’s Luigi, our cat, and he wants some food. He goes through his life quieter than a monk in a monastery but he touches me on the back when he is desperate. It wouldn’t occur to him to meow like other cats do. No, a gentle touch to take a few more days off my life is just what the doctor ordered, says Luigi.

I should know it’s coming but I am never prepared.

Author: Jim Hagarty

I am a 72-year-old retired journalist, busy recovering from a lifelong career as an unretired journalist. This year marks a half century of my scratching out little fables about life. My interests include genealogy, humour and music. I live in a little blue shack in Canada and spend most of my time trying to stay out of trouble. I am not that good at it. I also spent years teaching journalism. Poor state of journalism today: My fault. I have a family I don't deserve, a dog that adores me, and two cars the junk yard refuses to accept. My prized possessions include my old guitar and a razor my Dad gave me when I was 14 and which I still use when I bother to shave. Oh, and my great-great-grandfather's blackthorn stick he brought from Ireland in the 1850s. I have only one opinion but it is a good one: People take too many showers.