Whilst the rest of us have had to deal with all manner of shortages on the supermarket shelves, the squirrels are just fine and dandy, merci for asking. It’s the middle of winter and food is supposed to be scarce, yet they are, inexplicably, looking plump and meaty.
This is not just a generic squirrel thing across the whole population; the ones in TW8 are noticeably fatter than their rest-of-London counterparts, and we know this because other Londoners comment when they visit us. And, despite the fact that they clearly don’t need the extra food, they have renewed their efforts to steal the food that Cat Daddy has been leaving out for the birds.
All this makes Cat Daddy more angry with the squirrels than I ever thought possible. He is also angry with Louis Catorze for “not doing his job” in preventing this thievery.
Now, for a while I thought perhaps Catorze was reluctant to take on the squirrels because they were almost the same size as him. However, we know that he is perfectly happy to confront three foxes at a time, so this can’t possibly be the reason. I have also wondered whether, somehow, due to his advancing years and because the squirrels are the same colour as the fence and the winter shrubbery, he just isn’t able to see them. But then, if he is able to spot a bug who is minding its own business across a dark room, he is quite capable of seeing a chubby chonkster of a squirrel doing this:

Conclusion: Catorze is fully aware of what’s going on and would do something if he wanted to, but he just doesn’t want to. And why would he, since he has Cat Daddy to run outside on his behalf, shouting and waving a stick at the offenders?
I was about to semi-quote Sylvia Plath and say that Catorze was steering Le Château like his own private car, but that would be far too much like hard work. He’s happily relaxing on the passenger side and letting his chauffeurs – us – get on with the steering.

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