It sounds like Cat-Fight Night outside... hmm.

The sound of cats fighting is something I haven't heard in a loong time. My favourite story about it, from growing up, was the time my dad turned them into dogs....

The neighborhood we lived in at the time had its share of rowdy cats and dogs, and, like the clever man he is, my dad used to keep a jar of rocks and a slingshot near the window to ward of the pesky beasts. One night, however, he reached for the jar and found there were no rocks! Perhaps the jar wasn't there either- he wasn't too clear on the details the next morning. Either way, he asked my mum what on earth had happened to the rocks. Her reply was something to the point of,"Oh, I'm sorry- I was cleaning the other day and thought the jar was something the kids had left up here. I threw it out."

What to do, what to do. Again, being the clever man that he is, my dad rummaged around till he found a reasonably similar collection of objects that would serve as projectiles. Fire one! And there went the first 'Fisherman's Friend' lozenge. Fire two! And so on, till the miauling had stopped. Silence.

Then, a chorus of dogs started barking. The only conclusion worth drawing was that the noise-makers had not, in fact, been cats. They had been dogs with sore throats....