It was almost bedtime and I was trying to convince a very grubby little boy to come inside and take a bath. I ended his resistance by chasing him down, grabbing him up and giving his ribs a good tickle.

“You’re just like trying to get a cat in the bath tub,” I teased. “Let me tell you a story,” I said as led him to the bathroom and began to get him ready for the tub. Keeping him distracted and laughing as I put him in the water, I told him the story of how I had once given a cat a bath and soon I had attracted the audience of my whole family.

When I was about 16, I decided to give my cat, Mister Roseanna - the name being another story - a bath. My friend Anna came straight home from school every Friday afternoon and gave both her cats a bath, even being so dedicated to the task that she often turned down offers to do more fun things like go swimming. I began to feel guilty, thinking I was neglecting my own cat because Mister Roseanna was more than 10 years old at the time and he had never had a proper bath in his whole life - except with his tongue.

Now, my mother cleans house on Friday. Once the house is clean, woe be unto the soul who messes it up. I bought the necessary supplies on my way home from school and told my mother I intended to give Mister Roseanna a bath. When she informed me she had already cleaned the bathroom, I pleaded and promised not to messup the bathroom and promised to scrub out the bathtub when I was done. Doubtful but tired of arguing, my mother finally gave in.

I assembled the flea shampoo and the old towels necessary for cat bathing and then caught Mister Roseanna and carried him into the bathroom.

At first he didn’t suspect a thing out of the ordinary, but as I began to fill the tub with water he got a little nervous. When I gently placed him in the luke-warm water, he became frantic. I spoke to calm him as I poured water over his body with a cup. But he responded with yowling and trembling.

I lathered him up with shampoo, but the directions said to let him soak for ten minutes before Irinsed him. Soaking him was probably even a worse idea than bathing a cat.

As I turned the knob to refill the bathtub for the rinse cycle, Mister Roseanna saw his chance to catch me by surprise. He deftly climbed my arm, leapt up and grabbed the curtains to the bathroom window. He clung to the curtains for a moment, unsure of what to do next. I grabbed for him but got nothing but a handful of air as he vaulted over to the bathroom counter. Quick as a streak, he ran around the sink, knocking over soap bottles and toothbrushes, and then across the back of the toilet. He gave another mighty leap and extended his claws into a hand towel, but it quickly gave way to his weight and sent him plummeting to the floor.

He ran to the door and yowled, no doubt hoping my mother would come to rescue him. I closed him in and would have caught him except for the fact that soapy, wet and angry cats are not easy to hang on to. Mister Roseanna continued to run frantically around the bathroom, leaping a good three to four feet up the tile walls and then sliding back to the floor. And with each leap he left a streak of cat hair, soap and mud.

After he had exhausted his attempts to escape, he settled in the corner of the bathroom with his feet and tail tucked under his body, meowing loudly.Seeing my opportunity, I threw a bath towel over him and used his momentary confusion to get a grip on him, rinse him off and towel him dry. I let him air dry for a short time, too.

When I let him out of the bathroom, he stalked down the hall and made a big show of shaking each paw as he took a step. When I returned to check out the damage to the bathroom, there was not a surface in the bathroom, except for maybe the ceiling, that did not have a mix of soap, mud and cat hair stuck to it.

It took the rest of the afternoon to clean and sterilize the bathroom to my mother’s standards. Even then, I don’t think she was very pleased.

Mister Roseanna lived another 10 or 11 years - to the great age of 21, which would be comparable to 101 in human years - and he never had another bath, except with his tongue.

Janelle Jessen is a reporter and staff writer for the Decatur Herald and the Gentry Courier-Journal. She may be reached by e-mail at jjessen @ nwaonline.com.

Opinion, Pages 5 on 06/16/2010