International Bad Cat Day: Cellphone version

[pameladean]

No, nobody has been ordering junky cat food or $500 cat furniture on the internet.

Yesterday the basement floor drain backed up. Not very much, but experience has taught us that this kind of thing does not get better on its own. I accordingly went to Roto-Rooter's website and scheduled an appointment for this afternoon. This meant that I had to set an alarm and get up an hour or so earlier than I usually do. I have always hated waking up to an alarm; the initial sensation and its slow draining away are just nasty. I hated it when I was in high school, I hated it when I had day jobs, and I still hate it. I did get up, however, and gave the cats a somewhat early breakfast, and took my first medication and a shower. While I was wandering around my bedroom getting dressed, Saffron began her usual antics at that time of the morning -- clawing at the tape covering the air conditioner's accordion, clawing at the tape sealing a crack in the other window, and knocking things off my dresser. I'd always thought these behaviors were intended to elicit breakfast, but apparently they are just a morning vent for high spirits. I had picked up my cellphone to see if Roto-Rooter had called early, as technicians are wont to do, just as Saf knocked a pillbox, the tube of toothpaste the dentist always gives me, a small flashlight, and a map of Wild River State Park off the dresser and, fortunately, into the open underwear drawer.

I put down the cellphone, removed Saffron from the dresser, and put the objects back.

Saffron, who is very good-natured about having her pursuits interrupted, unless they involve moths or squirrels, settled down on a stack of storage tubs that I had put a folded quilt down on a few days earlier. I had put the quilt there because, having washed it, I realized there was nowhere to store it. But in Saffron's opinion I had made her a nice bed just at squirrel-watching level.

After I was dressed, I put keys and wallet into my pocket and looked for the phone. No phone. I checked to see if I'd wandered into my office and put it on the charger. No. I finally picked up the landline phone in my bedroom, and called my cell. I didn't want to wake Raphael, so I only let it ring once. It was definitely in my bedroom. But I still couldn't find it. At last I called it again and just let it ring. It was in the bedroom. It was vibrating as well as ringing, but the sound was muffled. I followed it to the apparent source near the dresser. No phone.

Saffron was folded sedately onto the quilt with all her feet tucked up. She looked at me with mild interest as I bent closer and closer to her in pursuit of my phone. Had it fallen into the wastebasket? Slid under the radiator?

No. It was under the cat. I pulled it out from beneath her belly, Saffron regarding me with the utmost benignity the entire time, and put it firmly into my pocket.

Pamela

Comments

[vgqn.livejournal.com]

You took away her warm massage vibrator? Cruel human!

[pameladean]

Yes, I am a very sad excuse for a cat person.

She didn't seem at all upset, though.

P.

[graydon saunders (from livejournal.com)]

The feline sense of humour is perhaps cruel.

I do hope the drain gets managed adroitly; we're currently getting about 50 mm of rain, so drains have been rather on my mind.

[pameladean]

The drain appears to be being managed; it is nice that the problem is not actually the main drain but rather the line from the downstairs kitchen, which explains some anomalous results I was getting when trying to see what was going on.

I hope your drains remain well-behaved. That is a lot of rain.

We have rain here too, but with much smaller accumulations expected. I am hoping it will make up the 1.6 inch departure from normal, but it might not quite get there.

P.

[graydon saunders (from livejournal.com)]

1.6 inches is a good fair bit of rain, too! (41mm if you get it.)

Not the main drain is excellent, if there must be drainage difficulties at all. Much better than the "Manitoba maple strangling the outflow pipe to the city service, and you can't start by digging" scale of version of the problem.

Drains are appearing entirely well behaved; unlike the last time there was extravagant hard cold rain in autumn, it looks like almost nobody has had their power go out, and no-one for any length of time. (Having the underground substation flood is a troublingly thorough way to make the power go out, but they seem to have fixed it thoroughly this time.)

The local building drains make cat-fascinating gurgling noises and the pumps ping and lament to themselves, but one good thing about this building is that its local "drain" is the former and long-buried Garrison Creek, so it takes an awful lot of water to be a problem. (Glyph of sign against evil, casting about of salt, etc.)

[pameladean]

Yes to the relative amounts of rain; I failed to mention that whatever we get will come over the course of three or four days, whereas it sounded as if yours might be arriving rather faster.

May the glyph and salt prevail! I'm glad there is a bit of entertainment for cats.

P.

[graydon saunders (from livejournal.com)]

So far, so good! 37.4mm as of midnight, and it's still raining. So it looks like we will get somewhere around the forecast 50mm before the rain tapers off and the high winds start.

"And in the stormy east wind straining" sounds so much nicer at a poetic remove, really it does.

[rosefox]

Sam looooves to sit on my phone. "Under the cat" is now the first place I look when I've misplaced it.

[pameladean]

Sorry, I seem to have replied as a new comment rather than a, well, reply.

P.

[pameladean]

Well, it will certainly be among the places I look from now on!

P.

[rolypolypony.livejournal.com]

:D

Lydia is pretty sure my phone is her nemesis! Had it ended up under her, histrionics would have ensued ;)

[pameladean]

That's really what I'd have expected from Saffron, who has definite opinions about many things. But phones are apparently not among them.

P.

[rolypolypony.livejournal.com]

Silly kitty! They like to keep us on our toes, I guess :)

[inlaterdays.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you finally found it!

"I was just minding this for you, mom!"

[pameladean]

Yes, that's pretty much the attitude she displayed. She is a funny, funny thing.

P.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

The square vibrator thing? You want a turn? Well, I guess I will let you. But do put it back.

[pameladean]

*hee* I wonder if she's sat on it before but I never noticed. I don't usually care much where it is inside the house, but I gave its number to Roto-Rooter to give myself more freedom of motion.

P.

[grenacia.livejournal.com]

I don't ever put my phone down in places the cat might sit, but when I shared this funny story with my husband, he said that whenever he puts his phone down on the bed, if the cat is on the bed she will go lie on the phone, even though it's a king size bed with plenty of other places for the cat to go.

[pameladean]

Hee. My old cat used to put his front paws on anything that you put on the bed, whether it was a hardcover book or a piece of paper or a pile of laundry. Saffron doesn't usually do that. But I put the phone on a comparatively small space she had claimed, so there was no real choice but to lie on it.

P.

[oneminutemonkey.livejournal.com]

In our house, all lost things are considered to be under the cat. :)

[pameladean]

We actually have seven cats and checking under all of them would be quite the production.

P.

[vass]

My cat does that too. So far it hasn't hatched.

Sometimes I've gotten in trouble for disturbing her to check if she was sitting on it, and it turned out I was sitting on it.

[pameladean]

That's what I assumed had happened, that I'd either sat on the phone or flung a fold of the unmade bed over it.

AP.

[thinkum]

Too funny! (I'm surprised having the cellphone ringing against her belly didn't startle her more.)

[pameladean]

Saf is extremely self-possessed and is not easily startled. She was a rescue and a foster cat, but either she has a very resilient personality or nothing really bad happened to her before she was rescued.

P.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Nothing like the massage a vibrating phone can give you. Clever Saffron!

I do like how cats are able to turn everything to their advantage--what a skill! And your description of Saffron's early-morning hijinks makes me think of Jiji's, which can make me laugh out loud--not just the mad tearing, but his expressions.

Alarms, on the other hand, and being woken by them -_- I share your feeling. When I set an alarm, it results in my waking up every hour throughout the sleep period, because I so hate being woken by them. I keep waking up and going back to sleep, hoping to end up timing it so I can turn off the alarm and get up without that hideous panic-inducing, heart-jarring alarm experience.

[cat-sanctuary.livejournal.com]

"Hey, I've *got* that thing...that thing the human is so possessive about! What's it good for? Hmm...feels kind of interesting when it's making that noise..."