Purr-fect Dilemma

Heide met someone she really loved but was afraid to get too close to him for fear he would discover her deepest secret: When she feels really happy and content, she purrs like a cat. She tries real hard not to do that but if she completely relaxes and lets her guard down, it just happens, usually as she is drifting happily off to sleep.

She blames Blackie, who had been sleeping curled up next to her for years. The purring must have somehow rubbed off on her in kinda the same way Blackie took to snoring. But Heide had no idea how to explain this to Joey. Then one Sunday afternoon while lying in a grassy lakeside field after a local hopscotch tournament, she involuntarily succumbed to her overwhelming feeling of content and drifted off and began purring.

When she awoke Joey was looking at her with a silly little grin on his face, and suddenly she realized she must have slipped up and begun purring. But Joey just seemed relieved. "And I thought I was the only person on the planet who purred," he said laughing.

Heidi is in one of the restrooms at Ice Box in Miami Beach. Not the cool one with all the nooks and crannies and hiding places, but the other one. She's beneath a stack of paper hand towels on a table just to the left as you walk in. If you listen real close, you can hear her purring under there.