Jack opened the door and saw his elegantly thin wife Simone riding her bicycle along the pavement without even holding the handlebars
That is absolutely and utterly wrong, he told her rudely yet patiently.
You are giving a bad example to the cat and to many other people who may be looking out of their windows or driving along this intriguingly bland suburban road
Louisa grinned like a Cheshire cat would
Don’t be so ridiculous she cried, cats can’t ride bicycles. Their legs are not long enough
You’re missing the more subtle point that you are breaking the law in a particular way Now the cat or any cat, a dog or a human being may not be able to ride a bicycle but they can break the law.
Well of course they can because we all have free will or we are just too lazy to think she cried merrily.
So if you ride a bicycle along the pavement especially when there are people about you are giving the impression that you do not have any thought for the good of others. In modern terminology you are a narcissist or in Christian terminology you are a sinner although it’s not a mortal sin unless you kill somebody deliberately and wilfully. Who knows who is guilty of mortal sin ?
Don’t ask me I’m only a writer
Oh dear Jack you are so scrupulous. I have never done it before but it was so inviting when I came around the corner I felt like a child. I thought how lovely it will be to ride along the pavement
It’s very sad Jack sald that people see being an adult as a deprivation of pleasure. There are adult pleasures of course that we can’t talk about those in front of the cat can we?
Why not, the little cat wondered to herself. I would like them to talk about is in front of me.
The elderly couple rolled into the sweet little kitchen on their milk bottle like legs and their cruelly deformed feet and rolled onto the wooden bench behind the kitchen table. But close to the grand piano as well
What are we having for our tea?
Jack said, I found a teapot in the dining room so we can have tea in the pot instead of in mugs with tea bags I think you will enjoy that my dear
I definitely will. I love a nice teapot. And have you made a cake?
I’ve made a lot of cakes but they are potato cakes!
Well my mother used to make those in the 1950s or was it the 1960s ? We still had a coal fire with an oven at the side. Those were the days.
Jack put the potato cakes on the table along with some co-op best butter.
Then little Louisa climbed onto the table and licked the butter with her red tongue.
See I told you that you were leading the cat into sin and now she’s been licking this butter. I will have to throw it away m
A cat can do something wrong but is it a sin?
Are there cats in hell?
But she didn’t see me riding on the pavement, his beautiful brave wife exclaimed with a subtle yet obvious hint of violence.
Unfortunately the cat has got second sight being half Irish and she definitely did see her mother riding the bicycle along the pavement breaking the law with every turn of the pedals
What the cat was thinking was this:
is doing something illegal automatically a sin and is something legal always good?
The second question is easier to answer because we know that in world war two many things were done in Germany that were legal under their leader Hitler but they were definitely not good to put it mildly
To be plain they were evil
But breaking the law by riding a bicycle along the pavement is not in the list of sins in most Catholic missals
I suppose in the time of the Apostles there were no pavements and there were no bicycles so you would have to look for a general principle.
Give unto Caesar what is Caesars and give to God what is God’s
After that Jack got some fresh butter from the fridge and he and his wife demolished the potato cakes along with some bacon and egg
And so would all of us
Who would feed the cat?
How my heart speaks 