Studies have shown that pets elevate quality of life and even lengthen life spans of terminally ill people. Well. In the case of my fluffy puff feline Dodo, that certainly is true.

A very little-known fact about my Dodo is that eons ago, many many past lives prior, Dodo and I lived in the Amazon and he was my battle cat. We were very close, and he’d warded off countless predators to protect me. Jungle cats are also great for keeping one warm while napping on the cool moss. (Besides, we women wore so little back then so as not to let our pelts and straps get in the way of battling and acquiring man-slaves.) As an incarnated domestic feline today, Dodo exhibits very little of his old stealth, lithe aggressive characteristics. But this morning…

Dodo was hanging out in the bathroom with me as I was getting ready, as usual. We were c0nversing casually about the merits of Zhang Guoqing’s belief that the Democratic party will protect the interests of small and medium American enterprises and labor that could produce an impact on China-U.S. trade relations, when suddenly, Dodo shifted his entire focus away from me and toward the far end of the bathroom. In exactly 0.014323 seconds, his body went from lazily reposed on my left foot, to stiff bee-line toward the corner where the tub meets the wall. I didn’t have my glasses on yet, so I didn’t know what was there.

In battle cat mode, tail high in the air with no curl on the tip to signify playfulness, Dodo let out a deep-throated “WOWL!” and shoved his cone into the wall, trapping the enemy into a face-to-face brawl with his own face. He backed away just half a step at one point to introduce the villain to a stomp with his paw. “WOW” he roared again, following some gray fuzzy (because I can’t focus) winged demon in flight across the length of the bathroom, disappearing behind the toilet. Dodo guarded this toilet, eyes unblinking, tail swishing widely left to right and right to left. His fur stood on end, making him look even bigger and more aggressive. Feeling comfortable that my safety is protected by my cat, I stepped into the tub for my shower.

From within the shower I heard scurries and battle yowls and saw dashes of shadows through the hazed glass. (Okay fine, it’s plastic.) When I finally emerged and put my contact lenses in, I stepped carefully toward the bathroom door and saw the demon that Dodo had risked his life to shield me from, and indeed, this cat proved again how well he knew my weaknesses. On the wall was the biggest grossest blood-sucking mosquito I had seen out of the tropics!!!

I stumbled backwards a few steps in my horror, raising my hands to my face, stifling a scream. The scars from my last battle with the mosquito breed still dapple my body, and the taste of Benadryl, the smell of ointment on swollen bumps the size of tennis balls still linger on my senses, as if it were only last week that I’d been brutally attacked and my blood sucked by these vampiric insects at the Polynesian Culture Center in Hawaii without my battle cat there to protect me.