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Who says cats are graceful?

Who says cats are graceful?

They must have some massive PR budget, because my cats, at least, are decidedly not graceful.

Proof lies in the tale I’m about to relate.

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OK, take a look at this picture. This is an old picture; now there is another bookcase along the wall between the light and dark bookcases. It fits snugly – the corners of the book cases meet, creating a square behind them that is blocked off. Nothing is there, can’t get to it. The plastic containers on top of the bookcase aren’t there any more, but the monkey with the banana is.

So.

Lately the cats have been getting up there and knocking the monkey onto the floor. Almost daily we’ll find him sitting on the floor; once, we found him drug halfway down the stairs.

Today, today was their peak performance. I’m minding my own business, poking around on the computer when I hear a cat crying. Now we can usually tell more or less what the cats vocalizations mean. Playful, mad, hungry, needy – whatever, we can usually tell. Also, each cat has its own distinctive sound; Max is loud and tends to be yowly, George has the tiniest meow but can be heard when he wants to be, Fred is quite talkative, Tasha rarely meows, she mostly chirps and mrrrps. Yes, that’s a word. Really.

So there is this pathetic meow that sounded unfamiliar. It was definitely one of ours, but not of a sort I’ve heard them make. I go looking for the source, and end up in the library. George is agitated, and is snuffling the bookshelf. Fred is perched on the cat tree, looking very interested in the proceedings. The monkey is again on the floor. And then I heard the cat cry again.

Out from between the two bookcases where the corners meet, a grey paw waves pathetically. Tasha had managed to get up on the bookcase, shove the monkey off, and then, graceful creature that she is, either decided to see what was down in that corner, or simply fell off. I don’t know how long she was in there – could have been up to four or five hours, but honestly, I don’t think it was that long. The way the cats were acting, I think it had been a recent adventure.

To get her out, we had to empty one bookcase, so we could move it away from the wall. I’m not sure how we’re going to solve this little problem, either.

Cats.

Originally published at Jen’s Corner. You can comment here or there.

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10 Comments

  1. It is a common problem. Either cats, or something else gets shoved down the rabbit hole.
    Solution: Pop over to Home Depot, pick up some 2×4 MDF board. Have them cut it in half, lengthwise, so you’ll have two 1×4 pieces.
    Take it home, and glue the pieces in an “L” shape, overlapping. Place the L atop your bookshelves, covering the hole.
    –Brian

    • That’s a good idea – problem is, the bookcases aren’t the same height. Hm. Maybe we could switch them, but I think there was a reason we put them in that way to begin with.
      Still, I’m sure we’ll figure something out. :D

  2. That is a beautiful book collection. My thought would not be a lack of gracefulness on the cat’s part so much as an overabundance of curiosity. I understand it’s the number one killer of cats.

  3. Poor Tasha! (though her tale of woe did make me laugh quite heartily).
    Have you posted photos of all your felline friends? Would love to see. =)

    • We sure have!
      Meet our oldest, Pandora. She’s around 15 years old. She’s doing fairly well for now.

      There’s Max, who’s about 5 years old. Which is the last time we had a Christmas tree, since it seems as if every time a cat might grow out of tree attacking, we get a youngster or two.

      Here’s our grace queen, Tasha. She looks like she should be a princess, and she usually thinks she is. Then she does something… not princess-like. We think she might even be a full Maine Coon; she’s about 2 or so.

      The barbarians of the household are Fred and George. They’re about a year and a half now, and still no signs of civilized behaviour. Fred is a little hellion, while her brother shows some signs of dignity. Or confusion, it’s hard to tell.

      And then there’s the red-headed stepchild of the family, the dog. Jake is about 8 years old, and gets along really well with the cats. We really lucked out with him.

      Man, I need to get more recent pictures uploaded! Our net is horrible right now though. Maybe sometime this week!

  4. This made me laugh. We had a ferret once who managed to get himself in the tiny crawlspace under a MASSIVE wall unit (we’re talking 3 feet wide, 2 feet deep, and about 11 feet tall) my parents had built, finished, and were putting into place. They got the whole enormously heavy thing wedged into the perfectly sized place Daddy had built it for…and then we heard “scritch scritch scritch” from beneath it. Daddy was for leaving him there until I reminded him that dead ferrets tend to smell bad.
    I wonder, since the book cases are not the same height, if the key lies not in keeping the cats from falling in, but rather giving them a way to get back out again. Could you attach a piece of carpet from the top to the bottom of one of the bookcases, allowing Unfortunate Kitty of the Day to climb back out?

  5. C

    Easy solution if the third bookcase is similar in height to the light one in the picture might be to cover the hole between them with a peice of thin plywood or similar rigid-but-thin material (plexiglass maybe?) Hot-glue it down on each bookshelf to keep it in place, and it should be low-profile enough that you can’t tell it’s even there, but it keeps the kitties from trapping themselves again.

    HTH

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