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Friday, February 06, 2009

Binary Meow Code

Yesterday morning offered a lot of excitment in our household. We decided a few weeks ago to have our living floor refinished, and yesterday was the day. For a few years now we've been on the fence about having it done. Yes our floors were showing some wear and tear, but it wasn't bad enough to justify redoing the floors. That was until I moved our big chair to sweep without realizing that there was a toy caught under it. It apparently gouged the floor. What made me think so? Well, when I pushed the chair back to figure out what made the loud scratching sound, I found two huge scratches in the floor.

The timing worked out really well because although we need to be out of our house 72 hours, my triathlon training buddy and her family are in FL so they generously invited us to stay in their house. Since their house is much nicer and larger than ours, we keep on joking about our "vacation." Seriously, having the boys play in a finished basement while I chill out on the couch upstairs is like a vacation.

Unfortunately our feline and canine children also needed to be out of the house, and even though we were invited to bring the cats, I was a little nervous about how they might make their presence felt in a strange house. I therefore made arrangements to board them at a kennel owned by friends of ours.

I started out yesterday morning with a plan. First I did a "cat scan" of the house to locate the cats. Then I snuck up on Deputy Unmouser, grabbed her, and locked her in the downstairs bathroom. I was conident that confining her to the bathroom would make her easier to cage later. One little problem here: I had left the cage in the basement. I decided to go after Chief Unmouser and lock her with her sister. I figured that Deputy Not to be deterred, I figured that Deputy Unmouser was probably just lounging around in the bathtub or on the toliet lid. I may not have been correct. When I opened the bathroom door carrying Chief Unmouser, Deputy Unmouser made a beeline for the door and tried to bolt out. Chief Unmouser took advantage of the distraction to also try and escape. There was some hissing and meowing from the cats and me which ended with Chief Unmouser escaping and shooting upstairs. I could have sworn she had a rocket strapped to her back.

Once upstairs she stared at me and walked around slowly. I should have just gone back downstairs and waited until she picked a spot and curled up for a nap. In fact I even remember thinking that, but for reasons I fail to understand I took the bait and actually chased her. I'm sure you can guess where this...or more specifically she went. She went under OS's captain's bed and in between the drawers so there was no way I could reach her. Rats! Or maybe I should say Cats! I was foiled by her.

As I was trying to figure out ways to outsmart her I heard a chorus of \"meows" and "mews" being exchanged between her and her sister who was still in the bathroom downstairs. It was just like a little cat binary code where instead of using O and 1 they were using meow and ow and they tried to figure out how to overthrow me and take over the house and then the world. It was pretty intense. I was breaking out in a sweat. No, I'm not kidding about the sweat. Chasing them around the house was more of a workout than my triathlon training earlier that morning!

I then did the next logical thing and lured her downstairs with liver treats. The dog then did the next logical thing and came out of nowhere and faster than a speeding bullet jumped in front of the cat and ate the treats. Deputy Unmouser was actually quiet since I had shoved some treats under the bathroom door for her. Chief Unmouser bolted into the basement. I finally caught her and put her in the upstairs bathroom. I didn't want to put the cats in the car until the floor people got there because it was so cold outside.

The floor people showed up on time and I proceeded to start the process of transferring the zoo to my car. In case you're not a pet owner, when animals get stressed out they can shed big time. The floor people were amused by all the meowing and the amount of fur flying as I brought one cat carrier to the car. Then they were even more amused by the repeated meowing and fur flying as I brought the second cat carrier out. By the time I dragged the dog to the car, I thought they were immune to futher surprises, but when I walked out with my younger son, the head floor guy gasped in surprise, "You have a small boy!!!" He then commented that since he had been watching me carry out the pets he didn't realize that there was a child in the house. "Yes," I said calmly. "In fact I have two." He looked around as if expecting OS to appear from a cabinet. I explained that OS was in fact in school.

The cats got settled in the kennel. OS was quite impressed to learn that their room is called a "deluxe hotel suite." Apparently it consists of two cages that are connected by a tunnel so that the cats can visit each other as much as they want. I'm sure that Deputy Unmouser is just loving that.

A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: It is easier to move cats if you prestage their cages in the room where you plan to trap them.

posted by Alex Elliot @ 9:25 PM 1 comments

1 Comments:

At 2/07/2009 12:39 PM, Suzanne said…

I just love your "cat scan." It cracks me up every time. And this story lived up to my "cat scan" seal of approval for unbridled hilarity.

My Profile

Name:	Alex Elliot
Home:	MA, United States
About Me:	Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
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