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Ever take and try to find an ironclad leave for yourself from a three-rail billiard shot?
And tonight I had to fish a cat out of a toilet. And give a cat a bath in a sink. And try to dry a cat with a towel when the cat was having none of it, convinced that if he just licked his fur into place long enough, it would dry on its own. (He was right in the strictest sense, but it wasn't going to happen on the timeline he thought.) And all I'd wanted to do was take a shower.
Ever since we got the cats and they quickly displayed their aptitude for running into spaces they could not easily be coaxed out of, such as the really scary built-in shelves next to the slightly diagonal shower,1 we've kept the bathroom door closed. Naturally this has encouraged the cats to think of it as some kind of tantalizing playground, to the point that both of them will lurk patiently on the threshold in hopes of slipping in during an unguarded moment. Hestia usually makes a beeline for the scary shelves. Autolycus likes to study the radiator, specifically whether he can fit behind it. Both of them want to hop into the shower, which we really don't want them to do. It's relatively easy to extract Autolycus because he's more or less in the open; he can be scooped up and rarely resists. Hestia has to be lured out with jingly feather toys. About every other day, I'd say, one of them attempts the bathroom and sometimes succeeds.
So I was on my computer, closing applications in preparation for shower and sleep, when I heard a click, as of a door swinging open. I didn't think much of it.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
derspatchel's office door occasionally opens on its own due to air pressure and/or ghosts. Then I heard a scratching and a scutter, as of little paws on surfaces of varying height. Also par for the course; it wouldn't be a day of the week if the cats weren't trying to climb Mount Bookcase or the Forbidden Tabletop. Then I heard a splash. Then I heard a mraaaaaaaaaao. And another mraaaaaaaaaao. And some more splashing.
Autolycus had fallen into the toilet bowl.
The rest of this story is self-explanatory: I put up the lid, removed the cat, enjoyed the experience of a wet panicked cat twisting out of my hands to rocket through the house in an effort to escape the calamity that had precipitated itself upon him, informed Rob of the situation because he really needed to know, did not appreciate the wet panicked cat rocketing up the stairs and into the bedroom, lured both cats downstairs with jingly feather toys, recaptured the cat conspicuous by his layer of toilet water and washed him by hand in the sink, which actually calmed him down considerably since both cats like the sink and the ingenious faucet which sometimes runs water for them to play with and sometimes doesn't, and enveloped the cat in the large orange towel from the futon, a process he resisted more than the initial immersion. His fur spiked out and resembled tiny black pinfeathers. I did not take a picture because my hands were full of towel and cat and also because I am kind.
I am also awake a lot later than I wanted. Both cats are now rocketing from end to end of this apartment; tough luck. I am going upstairs to ignore them for at least six hours.
And put the toilet seat down.
1. Our bathroom is like one of those mysterious archaeological finds where the city was suddenly abandoned and nobody knows why; theories range from conquest by neighbors to climate change and ecological collapse, but ultimately all it comes down to is a bunch of unburnt walls and artifacts slowly picked to pieces by weather and time. We don't know what provoked the one-time owners of the house to shove a bathroom into the space of a former pantry, especially when the very little room afforded by this choice of location required the toilet to be angled slightly toward the sink and the shower recessed beyond the wall with the cabinet on it, leaving one window as an air vent (which we can't open while we shower or the water will run down into our downstairs neighbor's, I believe, kitchen) and a weird little tile-covered shelf with the aforementioned scary built-in wooden shelves beneath it. Most of the apparent right angles aren't. It's very perceptible if you stand in the shower and look anywhere the walls meet. We're also really not sure about the shower tiles themselves, which seem to have been glued rather than grouted into place. Some unknowable disaster in the house's history ended in these creations and abandonments and we can only sift the dirt and small potsherds and pray that nothing of its kind befalls us.
Ever since we got the cats and they quickly displayed their aptitude for running into spaces they could not easily be coaxed out of, such as the really scary built-in shelves next to the slightly diagonal shower,1 we've kept the bathroom door closed. Naturally this has encouraged the cats to think of it as some kind of tantalizing playground, to the point that both of them will lurk patiently on the threshold in hopes of slipping in during an unguarded moment. Hestia usually makes a beeline for the scary shelves. Autolycus likes to study the radiator, specifically whether he can fit behind it. Both of them want to hop into the shower, which we really don't want them to do. It's relatively easy to extract Autolycus because he's more or less in the open; he can be scooped up and rarely resists. Hestia has to be lured out with jingly feather toys. About every other day, I'd say, one of them attempts the bathroom and sometimes succeeds.
So I was on my computer, closing applications in preparation for shower and sleep, when I heard a click, as of a door swinging open. I didn't think much of it.
derspatchel's office door occasionally opens on its own due to air pressure and/or ghosts. Then I heard a scratching and a scutter, as of little paws on surfaces of varying height. Also par for the course; it wouldn't be a day of the week if the cats weren't trying to climb Mount Bookcase or the Forbidden Tabletop. Then I heard a splash. Then I heard a mraaaaaaaaaao. And another mraaaaaaaaaao. And some more splashing.Autolycus had fallen into the toilet bowl.
The rest of this story is self-explanatory: I put up the lid, removed the cat, enjoyed the experience of a wet panicked cat twisting out of my hands to rocket through the house in an effort to escape the calamity that had precipitated itself upon him, informed Rob of the situation because he really needed to know, did not appreciate the wet panicked cat rocketing up the stairs and into the bedroom, lured both cats downstairs with jingly feather toys, recaptured the cat conspicuous by his layer of toilet water and washed him by hand in the sink, which actually calmed him down considerably since both cats like the sink and the ingenious faucet which sometimes runs water for them to play with and sometimes doesn't, and enveloped the cat in the large orange towel from the futon, a process he resisted more than the initial immersion. His fur spiked out and resembled tiny black pinfeathers. I did not take a picture because my hands were full of towel and cat and also because I am kind.
I am also awake a lot later than I wanted. Both cats are now rocketing from end to end of this apartment; tough luck. I am going upstairs to ignore them for at least six hours.
And put the toilet seat down.
1. Our bathroom is like one of those mysterious archaeological finds where the city was suddenly abandoned and nobody knows why; theories range from conquest by neighbors to climate change and ecological collapse, but ultimately all it comes down to is a bunch of unburnt walls and artifacts slowly picked to pieces by weather and time. We don't know what provoked the one-time owners of the house to shove a bathroom into the space of a former pantry, especially when the very little room afforded by this choice of location required the toilet to be angled slightly toward the sink and the shower recessed beyond the wall with the cabinet on it, leaving one window as an air vent (which we can't open while we shower or the water will run down into our downstairs neighbor's, I believe, kitchen) and a weird little tile-covered shelf with the aforementioned scary built-in wooden shelves beneath it. Most of the apparent right angles aren't. It's very perceptible if you stand in the shower and look anywhere the walls meet. We're also really not sure about the shower tiles themselves, which seem to have been glued rather than grouted into place. Some unknowable disaster in the house's history ended in these creations and abandonments and we can only sift the dirt and small potsherds and pray that nothing of its kind befalls us.
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Wackiness ensued.
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recaptured the cat conspicuous by his layer of toilet water LOL!
and also because I am kind Nonsense. It was your sober duty as Autolycus's moral guide to take a picture to remind him of the consequences of Going Where He Ought Not.
Okay, not really. But a photo would have been grand. But I'll just hop over to
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Streaking Wet Cats should be the name of some kind of band.
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Early in my experiences as a cat owner I learned to leave the toilet lid down over the seat. The seat itself is a challenge, an attractive nuisance to any cat with the least inclination to parkour. The edge of the bathtub, even an old-fashioned claw-footed model is as well. If you let them shower with you once they're either cured for life or revealed in their secret identity as water tigers.
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then there was singing
"Any boob can take and shove his head down the drain."
"And I call that Autolycus. Oh yes, we got trouble! Right here's a soggy kitty!"
"With a capital K which rhymes with 'Hey, that's not a pool!'"
Re: then there was singing
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This would be why we leave the toilet lid down in this house. Neither of the cats has ever fallen in but I don't want them drinking out of it either and they would like to very much.
Autolycus is living up to his name's reputation as a bringer of mischief.
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That was Autolycus. I can't tell if he's just validated your theory or presented an alternate reading of events. I wonder if the bathroom left any inscriptions behind.
This would be why we leave the toilet lid down in this house. Neither of the cats has ever fallen in but I don't want them drinking out of it either and they would like to very much.
(I am pretty sure that's what happened. He's demonstrated a professional interest in drinking from the faucet already.)
Autolycus is living up to his name's reputation as a bringer of mischief.
"If I had a mind to be honest, I see Fortune would not suffer me."
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I don't want to experience this again. Or, as is more likely to happen in my current abode, have to deal with objects batted into an open toilet.