Since my house sits on land that is very moist for about half the year, it has numerous vents near the ground so that the house doesn't rot from underneath (maybe all houses do, but I never noticed/cared before). About three or four weeks ago, Pooja found that the wire mesh screen covering one of the vents was unsecured in one corner, and shimmied through the tiny opening. She's since been hiding under the house about 18-20 hours a day. I could understand; it's been hot, and it's nice and cool under there, cooler probably than in the house, so I let her do it until the day it proved to be a bad idea.
That day came today.
I made her come in the house this morning before I left for church, but when I got home a few hours later, she was nowhere to be found. "Funny," I thought, "she must've escaped when I went out the front door." I went on the back porch and yelled for her, and, as usual, she emerged from the portal to the underbelly of my house, and I picked her up and carried her inside.
Minutes later, she was again nowhere to be found. "Wow," I said, out loud, to myself (because I'm now a crazy cat lady who writes blog posts about her cat and talks to herself), "It's like Pooja has found an alternate way in and out of the house."
And then it struck me.
The horror.
I bet she did find a way in and out of the house.
 |
| Too ashamed to look at the camera. |
So the hunt began...and didn't last long.
I walked into the bathroom and noticed the shower curtain wasn't hanging properly. I pulled it back and sure enough, Pooja had done some renovations: the entire face of the tub was hanging off. Behind it was visible a tangle of pipes, and through them, the cat's bewildered face peering up at me from under the house.
The little jerk had climbed up through the pipes and pushed the front of the tub off. I don't know by what super-feline strength she was able to do that, because it took all my human strength, magnified by the adrenaline of rage, to shove it back into place. (So angry was I at the cat, that I neglected to take photos of the bathroom, and now I'm mad at myself for not fully documenting the entire spectacle Her Horribleness did it again, so I was able to get a picture, now included with this post).
In hindsight, I should've known she was up to something. I'd hear her chirping under the house whenever I was in the bathroom, and the day or two before, thought I heard some scratching under the floor and some pipe noise. But, whatever, c'est la vie, que sera sera, and all that. There is no way I could have known that she was planning to burrow a "secret tunnel" into my bathroom.
In any case, the loose screen has been nailed and stapled shut, after which Pooja spent about a half-hour circling the perimeter of the house looking for an alternate entrance to her former den of iniquity, before giving up and crumpling into a despondent pile of fur and bones, and casting the occasional angry glance my way.
I'm certain I will find more grey hairs in the morning. They'll all have Pooja's name on them.
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