Mr. Bingley Experiments with Drugs

Mr. Bingley, of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice fame, was spoken of as "lively and unreserved" with "unaffected manners".  He was easy going and didn't care about class differences.  Charm came naturally to him and besides being handsome he was rich and just an all around pleasant fellow.

Of course I've read the book too many times to count and my favorite film is the six hour long BBC production starring Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy and Crispin Bonham-Carter as Mr. Bingley.  The quality of the acting is outstanding in that version but I have to admit that as far as looks go I prefer the Mr. Bingley played by Simon Woods in the 2005 Keira Knightly production of Pride and Prejudice.  There is just something about that shock of orange red hair and the way that his face lights up in a smile that is charming.

So charming did we find him and his style that we couldn't help but think of this Mr. Bingley when we brought our new cat home from the SPCA several years ago.  Our cat who was originally named "Houston" had gotten out of his cage and climbed up into the duct work of the building causing staff to call the manager and explain, "Houston, we have a problem".  We saw his picture on the SPCA website and drove out to Maple Ridge to have a visit.  There were many cats to chose from but our fellow was a charmer who laid down and rolled around on the floor of the visiting room, making eyes and begging us to come and pet him.

When we brought him home I don't know if we had the movie on or if it was just seeing our new cat sit very gentlemanly on the bookshelf but both Keeley and I looked at each other and said, "Mr. Bingley" in unison.  Our Mr. Bingley has a mane of orange on his head, more orange wrapped around his shoulders and back while the rest of him is white.  When he sits, front feet together, he looks as if he's a stately gentleman in regency era breeches and a jacket.  His personality matches Jane's Mr. Bingley well.  He doesn't care about

classes, going to most people for attention  and he is definitely an all-around pleasant fellow who charms pretty much everyone who comes in

to the house.

Today, though we got to see the "unaffected manner" side of our kitty. 

He is still young and plays quite often but today he was running around the house like a wild-man goofy cat--jumping, leaping, playing with anything he could get his claws on and his eyes were huge and a little glazed.  I was beginning to wonder if there was some truth to the full moon go-crazy theory and then I walked into the bathroom.  The truth was all too evident.   Mr. Bingley had very obviously been experimenting with "drugs".  We have a number of very small narrow shelves next to our tub and he must have stood on his hind legs to reach all the way into the back and somehow drag a herbal bath bag down on to the floor.  He then proceeded to completely shred it and spread it all over the room.   Obviously the lavender mint herbal mixture had something in it, perhaps similar to cat nip, that made him go nuts.  He must have imbibed quite a bit because there was not a whole lot left and what was was not spread around the room was a soggy chewed on mess.

Thankfully, after about an hour, our calm, genial, Mr. Bingley returned and for the past few hours he's been sitting on the window seat in front of our living room window.  I'm not sure if he's still too stoned to do much or recovering from expending too much energy.   Who knows what Mr. Darcy would say about his friend trying "drugs" but hopefully Mr. Bingley has learned his lesson and no future intervention will be necessary.  And as a responsible parent I promise not to buy any more bath infusion mixtures that might be too much of a temptation for our gracious, well-mannered gentleman.  

Mr. Bingley with Jane Austen

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