Mayor's Cat Steals Show At Lamont's Big Chance For Largely Undeserved Regional Recognition (Sadly, this is indeed a true story!)

The lowly yet largely misunderstood Town of Lamont, well known across all of far Northwest Whitman County as "that Town without a store', had a rare opportunity for recognition and publicity that had nothing to do with the newspaper's 'Police Blotter' when an amazingly sharp team of reporter/photographer types somehow managed to stumble across the Town in order to do a story on Lamont's 100 Year Festival on June 19th - a festival that highlights the Great State of Washington's extreme tolerance and understanding when it comes to allowing outrageously small and disorganized towns to remain duly incorporated entities sanctioned by the State - in spite of their own better judgment and decades of actual experience, for crying out loud! (Oh, thank goodness for their generosity and patience!) The cat, quite appropriately named 'Hellcat 2000', never the brightest one in the litter, somehow managed to climb an enormous tree but was too doggone stupid to climb back down and was officially reported missing for almost 48 hours, insiders report. "That stupid cat!" bellowed the Mayor while rethinking that whole "I am not a dog person!" thing. "The one chance Lamont has to make the quite excellent "Spokesman Review" and that doggone cat has to become some outrageous attention hog, meowing until the entire dern neighborhood became aware of the whole sordid saga! Of course, I was so relieved and giddy that the underachieving feline had not become a snack for some marauding and/or wily predator that it almost blunted my natural frustration at having our long awaited media interview overshadowed by a clumsy and 'painful to watch' yet ultimately successful rescue attempt!" he fumed with no small measure of genuine relief. "Oh, that's just great! I just know that my big butt is going to be splashed all over the paper as I quite shakily climbed that doggone ladder that seemed to reach to the very Heavens themselves! (What a wimp! Talk about a 'fraidy-cat' when it comes to heights! Oh, that was so embarrassing for the whole dern Town!) But on a happy note, at least the readers will be able to see the side of me that the citizenry has become so familiar with, for Pete's sake!" he mused. (Sadly, that is indeed his better side!)

The cat, although largely dismissive and seemingly ungrateful for the death defying and decidedly haphazard rescue, expressed his barely recognizable pleasure at his new-found freedom by just sauntering into the Mayor's front yard, digging a small hole, and relieving himself for what seemed like 45 minutes before gingerly entering the house to grab a quick snack. The Mayor, for his part, was reduced to a quivering mass of human jelly after his quite unnatural fear of heights kicked in several minutes after the somewhat graceless rescue attempt was achieved and retired to his room with an ice pack on his forehead. The Town, never a beehive of activity at the best of times, has largely returned to its sleepy, well-ordered repose after the most exciting 45 minutes in the last 25 years recedes into that 'Hall of Memories' that any small town reserves for such momentous occasions.