A Bedtime Story

It’s not easy to get a good night’s sleep these days. The birds have taken to serenading themselves hoarse in the predawn hours. The neighborhood cats are wailing like--what else--banshees. The dogs are yapping, barking and harmonizing on rap songs. If you try to get away from it all, say by a nice visit to Manhattan, the curious local custom of pushing freight cars off the tops of tall buildings is likely to deny you any rest.

All these disturbers of sleep, though, pale in comparison with the nocturnal experience of an unidentified peasant couple in the southeast China province of Jiangxi. According to the China Daily, they awoke one recent midnight to discover a leopard under their bed.

Years ago the late James Thurber was inspired to put a seal in a bedroom, thereby producing one of the classic cartoons. But a leopard in the bedroom is, well, a different breed of cat. How the leopard came to seek rest under the bed is unexplained. Like its famous counterpart high on the snowy slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro in the Hemingway story, its presence remains a mystery.

The taught rules of acceptable behavior don’t cover what to do when a leopard appears under the bed. The ultimate in cool, we suppose, would be just to roll over and go back to sleep. Prudence dictates otherwise. It’s best to face the situation squarely; saying “nice kitty” is one way to begin. Next, it’s a good idea to try to keep the beast content, or at least distracted. The Chinese couple did just that. They spent the night feeding the leopard ducks and chickens, whether raw or stir-fried with water chestnuts and hoisin sauce isn’t clear. In any event, it worked. Came morning, we were pleased to read, and the couple was able with the help of neighbors to cage their uninvited guest.

Moral (as Thurber used to say): Always count your chickens before checking under the bed, because you can never tell who might have decided to drop by for a late-night snack.