This was a Mell of a Hess

Paper bags straps don't fit over my head, thank heaven's

Marty

Here's a little story about our cat, Ace. Ace has been gone for several years, but we still laugh at his many antics.

Thanks to my husband, our cats always had access to the outside through a swinging Plexiglas window. They jumped to a landing, through the window to another landing and down to the second-story deck, then down a "cat walk" to a lower deck and finally to the ground. Ace and his sister, Nerf, did this many times a day.

Ace loved bags and would always crawl into an empty one that he happened to find. On the day of Ace's big adventure I had emptied a large Macy's shopping bag with sturdy twine handles and just hadn't put it away.

Well, I hadn't seen Ace for a couple of hours and went looking for him and calling to him--no luck.

Then I noticed the Macy's bag next to the cat launch pad with one handle and a piece of the bag missing. I realized that Ace must have gotten his head stuck in the handle and jumped through the window. That tore the bag and left this poor cat with a shopping bag handle necklace.

I began a frantic search and found our very embarrassed cat hiding under a car in the driveway. I finally coaxed him out and had to laugh at his pathetic state. We laughed a lot, but also realized he was very lucky that the shopping bag ripped and didn't leave Ace hanging on his flight out of the house.

Gail McIntrye