Thursday, October 30, 2008

The Return of Spidercat

Spidercat The Space Catdet lives.

Background: The master bath at the Kitten Farm West is laid out such that the shower stall is next to the bathtub; they share a half-height wall which has the tub faucet in it. The tiled top of this wall is about four feet up and forms a smooth but otherwise cat friendly ledge, easily reached from the tub proper. From the ledge, the glass of the shower stall goes up another three feet. The top of that is not cat friendly, a metal rail perhaps at most a half inch wide with a seven foot drop on the far side to the hard floor of the stall.

When I stepped into the bathroom this morning, Whitey joined me. He explored a bit on the ledge ... and then he reached up, and used his three foot plus reach to haul himself from the ledge up to the top of the shower stall. As he wobbled from side-to-side, I charged into the stall prepared to catch him and called for Katherine (who was not exactly awake). But before I could tell her to hop in the tub, he managed to turn 180 degrees, and ...

(... as I saw just how far his claws were extended for traction, my life flashed before my eyes knowing he would use them to the fullest when he fell on me ...)

... he jumped down on the tub side, for a sufficiently loose definition of jump down. He was aiming for the ledge, but while it broke his fall he bounced off it and he landed in the tub proper. I checked him, and he didn't seem worse for wear.

He earned 0 style points, but as pilots say, any landing you walk away from is a good one.

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