Picture a modern apartment bathroom. The wall above the sink and toilet has a very large vanity mirror that goes the length of the wall and about 2/3s the width with overhead vanity lights, six of ’em, to be precise. It has a side medicine cabinet, also fronted by a mirror, allowing for double imaging when the cabinet mirror is opened. Enter Elby, That Cat! Here he comes:
Elby loves, absolutely loves the bathroom. Every part of the bathroom. He used the tub as a handball court; the shower curtain for playing fort, stretching, and filing his nails. He enjoys going through the fine outside fabric to the next curtain, which is a clear plastic to keep the water inside the tub when you’re taking a shower. Lots of fine pinprick holes in both the plastic and fine drapery one.
He’s facile with cupboards, particularly below the sink, sneaking in and out, boldly leaving the doors open, so I know he’s been there. Hard to miss, actually. For whatever reason, Elby is very attracted to Q-tips. I used to keep them on the counter in a pretty little crystal bowl. He just could not resist taking a few and running down the hall with them. He’ll dig them out of the trash basket. He must have seen me hide the crystal bowl of Q-Tips underneath the sink in one of two small organized baskets I keep there. He found them immediately and continued running down the hall with them, tempting Ella to figure out why Elby thought these things were so cool. I hid them under other stuff and that has worked for the nonce.
He loves the counter and is especially fond of knocking things off it, which is why there is very little on the counter. He loves to drink water from the tap or from his own special 8 oz glass. A cat with his own 8 oz glass, you ask? Uh yup. He kept drinking from mine by my bed. Unfortunately, he’d use his paws for that delicate touch and knock the glass flying. He tried every direction, sometimes it just hits the floor, other times drenching the bed and sometimes me…. So, Elby gets the 8 oz glass of water and I get to drink out of plastic water bottles that come with caps, so we don’t swap spit. He never feels the need to knock his glass flying.
He’s with me when I shower, when I use the facilities, when I brush my teeth. And, I do mean with me. Right next to me, watching every move I make. He likes to knaw on my electric toothbrush as it sits innocently on the sink. He used to try and lug it around with him, but it kept clanking into the sink and I’d catch him with it. He is spellbound by gargling. His real weakness, though, is running water out of the sink tap. He’s not too fond of gushing water, prefers a quiet little constant drip, carefully spaced in time so he can anticipate the drop and catch it on his paw or in his mouth. He frequently comes to the table with the left side of his face and head damp from ducking into the drip, drip, drip of the faucet.
Tonight, though, was priceless. I do not have a functioning camera and I apologize for that, so we’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way. Use your imagination.
Elby is up on the counter, of course, because I’m taking my Spiriva Rx, which is one little pill in its own foil container. You peel back the foil, put the pill in this gizmo, close the inside cap, steady it on the counter, press this button and it punctures two micro holes in the pill, releasing a powder I inhale through the device. Elby tracks every move I make, wanting to capture the foil more than anything. He’ll fish that out of the waste basket as well. He thinks it is a fine toy. I have to distract him when I’m throwing it out, though I suspect he just indulges me and pretends not to notice. Nothing, absolutely nothing gets by Elby, trust me.
I had opened the medicine cabinet to get the gizmo and the foil packet, which gave Elby a glimpse of four clones of Himself… Oh my! Lions and tigers and bears, say it with me, oh my! He was taken aback, then puzzled, then curious. This called for investigation. Carefully, one paw in front of the next, he approached, but so were they! Feint, counter-feint, touch noses, turned his head this way, then that, keeping an eye on all the cats surrounding him. This went on for quite a bit. He’s fast and he’s smart. He figured out when they disappeared, appeared and disappeared. How sometimes there were four and then only two. I closed the side cabinet mirror and Elby was in hot pursuit. Schzam! Where did they go? He turned on the big mirror and cased it, stretching a full 2.5 feet up that mirror, peering into his own eyes, slowly blinking, patting, questing… In sympathy, I turned on the water for him to give him some new direction.
He’s crashed out on a pile of rugs folded on top of a box in the hallway. Guests are so exhausting.
Filed under: Commentary - Modern Times, Stories Tagged: adventures, cat, discovery, Elby, mirroring, water
