I stopped to take this photo one evening earlier this week while I was battling with Mr. Romeo for position at the table.

Romeo doesn’t normally beg for food, and only occasionally decides that he deserves a place at the table.

But when he does get it in his head, he can be assertive. And he was being very assertive on this evening.

He had a two-prong approach. First, he would grab my napkin and start to knock it towards the edge of the table. You can see that he’s in full control of the napkin in this photo.

And when I moved to reassert control of my napkin, he would take advantage of my distraction to snap one of those big paws out onto my plate, claws straining to latch onto whatever was within reach. I would drop the napkin to defend my plate, and then he would start the routine over again. I finally had to just pick him up and deposit him unceremoniously onto the floor, twice, before I managed to break his concentration.

Meanwhile, the felines did get their brief morning stroll most mornings this week, and Romeo just fell off the wagon once. On that morning, he disappeared for about an hour and didn’t respond when I called. But when he did show up, at least he didn’t appear to have been in a fight.

The other cats? Well, you’ll just have to click the link below to see all of today’s Friday Felines.

–> See all of today’s Friday Felines!