"Dang it," she thought. "I wonder when he’s gonna get this writin’ thing out of his head. I got company comin’ for supper and no place for them to eat."

Later Billy had just left to go to town and pick up some last minute groceries for the get-together—his final word, going out the door, was "Don’t touch a thing on that table."

"Now how am I gonna do that?" Lacey muttered, as she was dusting the ever dusty house. "There’s stuff scattered to the ceiling," she wasn’t far from wrong. Along with the paper and books Later Billy had taped 3 x 5 cards to the wall to aid him in his ‘yarnin’; push pins held snippets of news articles, notes with red hi-lites scribbled on them. They created a wallpaper, which Lacey considered not to be the "Laura Ashley" type she had seen in Martha Stewart’s magazine.

While Lacey was pondering her fate to live in an ever cluttered house, the cat came in the room.

Now, Scooter was a good mouser, and had just recently saved Lacey from a diamond back near the wash room, outside, so her presence in the house was tolerated and extra rations of ‘wet food’ were placed out for her. Scooter was just in the process of jumping up on the table, which usually Lacey wouldn’t permit, but this time Lacey just watched as the cat planted herself right in the middle of the mess Later Billy had left.

That cat just loved paper—you could find her usually on the stack of old Bluckaroo Times that Later Billy would forget to add to trash every week, snoozing.

Quick as the weather changes in Texas, Lacey got a plan. She waited and watched the cat as she tenuously placed first one paw and then the other on the stacks of paper, until finding a comfortable place for her afternoon nap.

Dogs may love trucks, but cats like to snooze and Scooter was definitely a cat. She pawed around and pushed papers about until she found her ‘bed’. In the process, paper was floating down onto the floor.

Lacey grabbed a large envelope that one of those catalogues had come in, and took all of the papers off the floor and off the table. Took the borrowed computer and printer and put them in a plastic bag and dusted the table, waxed it, then set the table with some placemats she had made and the good flatware.

When she had finished, there was the "Martha Stewart" dream setting for the table, and a cat sound asleep next to the Coal Oil lamp she used for the center piece.

The paper and the computer went into the garage and the ‘wallpaper’ was removed and numbered on the back, so that it could go back up on the wall after the company had departed. Lacey went outside, into the pasture and picked some wildflowers; Bluebonnets, Indian Paintbrushes and Queen Anne’s Lace for a bouquet to be put on the table. There, now it was perfect.

She started supper and just as she got the beans up to a boil, Billy walked in the front door with a bang of the screen.

"Lacey, what the Sam Hill?" Billy was chagrined. "What did you do with my writin’ stuff?"

"Oh, well, you see, the cat came in while I was cleanin’ the house and took up residence on the table. She scattered all of them papers all over the floor. I knew how important it was, so I gathered and put ‘em up all safe in the garage."

"What about Joe Bob’s computer that he loaned me? Huh? How about that?" Later Billy was red in the face and powerful angry.

"Well, you always say that dust is that machine’s worst enemy. And when Scooter came in she’d been rollin’ in the dirt so’s to catch varmints better, an’ I knew all that dust would hurt that thing, so I put it in a plastic bag and put it out in the garage with the rest of the stuff." Lacey was gaining some confidence now.

"Now, I suppose you’re gonna say that the cat was rollin’ around the wall where all my ‘portant notes were." Later Billy said sarcastically.

"No, I ‘member z’actly what you said, William. You said: ‘Don’t touch a thing on that TABLE.’ You didn’t say nothin’ about no wall." Lacey had played her trump card. She watched Billy sputter and try to come up with another argument, but he just shrugged and put the plastic bags from the store on the kitchen counter.

Lacey added, " Besides, Billy, I numbered all them notes all on the back, so’s I could put them up again for you, after the company leaves." She knew that Later Billy was going to calm down sooner or later, and hoped with the last comment that that would hasten the process.

Later Billy only snorted, and reached in the refrigerator for a Lone Star. "When’s that company comin’ anyway?’