Tales of Examinations

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Flying “Study Buddy”
By Wyndi S. White 

My cats Jasper, Annie, and Ely were constant study “helpers” while I was working my way through the exams. That constant meowing to be petted, lying right on top of my study notes, scratching at the door when I finally kicked them out—how in the world did I ever manage to read a single page? My study was on the second floor, and I could usually get them to leave me alone by opening the window that was directly over the porch roof below. They’d sit in the window or hop through it to bask on the sun-warmed porch roof. At first they would pause briefly on the windowsill before continuing on down to the roof, but it didn’t take long until they would just leap right through the window and land on the roof (it was a very short distance).

I got sick of sitting in that room, so for a change of pace one day I moved to the bedroom next door. Of course my cat Annie followed me. It was hot, so I opened the window. I was struggling to make sense of that incomprehensible Daykin book on the (old) part 10 syllabus, so when Annie leapt all I saw was what looked like a large tabby flying squirrel sailing out the window to the ground two stories below. For this was a leap-directly-through-window leap, not a pause-momentarily-on-windowsill leap, and there was no sunny porch roof below.

I am ashamed to say that my first reaction was to laugh my head off. Luckily Annie was just fine, and the hilarity of that moment revived me enough that I was actually able to make it through another chapter of Daykin.

Epilogue
You know, I haven’t “tested” Annie to see if she learned anything from her flight—maybe I’ll open up a window this weekend for old times’ sake.