The Hoppity Walk!

A few nights later we got our first taste of what I would refer to as the “Tyler Hoppity Walk.”

We were watching TV in the living room.  Noticing a pattern here?  We watched A LOT of TV as a family.

No flat screens in those days, TV’s had asses.  In our case it was a 50 inch Hitachi (is that brand still around?) in the den.  It wasn't even HD!  How we roughed it. 

We were watching, actually I don't remember, but whatever it was my father chose it as he rarely if ever let anyone else use the remotes.  No, really.  If I even pretended to take the remotes away from him he would go into hysterics.  Like how I would imagine a heroin addict would react during the first stages of withdrawal.

“Ok, Danny,” I HATED when he called me Danny.  “Let me have the remote back.”

“It’s not funny anymore.”  At that point I would return the remote to his hand and roll my eyes.

My father even flipped to the same channels, in the same order, whenever there was a commercial:

QVC.  For my mother. Tyler got all of his cat beds and I got a snuggie from QVC. 

CMT. For the country music videos. My dad took to country music when he hit 50.

HBO.

AMC.

Back to whatever show we were watching, even though it had started 30 seconds previously.

“MICHAEL!” My mother would cry.  “We missed it!”

It never changed.

Anyway, we were watching whatever, when in walked Tyler, toy in mouth, staring at us.  The toy would be dropped at our feet and he would either sit right in the middle of the living room, or on the ottoman or couch staring at my parents or me.

PLAY WITH ME NOW. 

As I was in the first few days of cat ownership, I would almost always get up, oblige Tyler, and play with him.  How he loved to play.  He had energy, that cat.  At particular times of the day he would, for reasons only he knew, get a bug eyed look on his face and run at top speed throughout the entire house, chirping the entire time.  Within a year no picture frame had the glass cover to it, they all fell prey to Tyler’s…..exercising.

His favorite game was…..watching me walk back and forth endlessly getting whatever toy I was throwing for him to chase.   I never minded, I loved playing with that cat. How he loved chasing his little ball across the room, bouncing it along until it would stop moving, at which point he would stare at me.

THIS BALL WON'T THROW ITSELF.

“OK, Tyler, hold on.” I would say.

Let's go back to the den.

On this particular occasion I did not oblige Tyler, as I was enjoying whatever we were watching. 

This did not sit well with Tyler.  He got visibly annoyed. How DARE I chose something else over playing with him!  I still did not get up.

“Give me a minute little boy.  Wait until the commercial.”  I said, convinced he would understand.

He didn’t.

All of a sudden, Tyler got a wild eyed look on his face, jumped in the air, curled his tail between his legs, chirped as the top of his feline lungs, and hopped diagonally across the room on his hind legs.

Hop!

Chirp!

Hop!

Chirp!

We all burst out laughing.  I had never seen a cat do that.  I didn’t even know a cat was CAPABLE of hopping like that.  Had I adopted a rabbit by mistake masquerading as a cat?

“What the fuck is Tyler doing?” My father asked between fits of laughter.

“The hoppity walk!” I replied. Had I coined a phrase?

The hoppity walk.  A Tyler tradition was born.