IF JIM QWILLERAN had read his horoscope in the daily paper on that particular morning, perhaps none of this would have happened. But astrology had never been one of his interests.
As he drank his third cup of coffee in his bachelor apartment over the garage, he glanced at the floor, which was strewn with out-of-town newspapers. He had devoured the national and international news, studied the editorials, scoffed at the viewpoints on the Op-Ed page, and scanned the sports section. As usual he skipped the stock market reports and the comics, and he never thought of looking at the horoscope column.
The advice he failed to read was portentous. The Daily Fluxion said, “This is not an auspicious time to change your life-style. Be content with what you have.” The Morning Rampage said, “You may feel restless and bored, but avoid making impulsive decisions today. You could regret it.”
Comfortably unaware of this counsel from the constellations, Qwilleran sprawled in his overscale lounge chair with a coffee mug in his hand, a cat on his lap, and another on the bookshelf nearby. They were an unlikely threesome. The man was a heavyset six feet two, fiftyish, sloppily attired, with graying hair and mournful eyes, and his exceptionally luxuriant moustache needed trimming. His companions, on the other hand, were aristocratic Siamese with elegantly sleek lines and well-brushed coats, who expected pampering as their royal prerogative.
