Several years ago, the missus and I bought into the now questionable idea that since we loved having a pair of cats in our home, adding another couple of kittens to the mix would be like adding extra scoops of ice cream to a sundae.
Well, much like the brain freeze and feeling of nausea that would follow eating that gut-busting ice cream monstrosity, the addition of the younger cats didn't work out quite the way we had hoped.
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At first, it was cute having them all sleep together and seeing the kittens chase the older cats around the house. As they got bigger, the playing sessions ended with the occasional hiss, and more frequently, flying fur, hurt feelings, and general animosity.
As reigning king of my castle, I proclaimed that the young cats must be banished to the lower level of our home, allowing for daily visits while leaving the older cats to go about their business of sleeping and hacking up hairballs in peace.
Since the basement entrance is an open doorway, I tasked myself with the simple chore of blocking a four-foot space. Childs play, me thought.
Not needing to spend any money on this simple job, I contemplated using all the resources my basement could provide. Since I had to account for the cats' exceptional jumping ability, I chose an old HDTV box, about six feet tall and just the right width, and jammed it into the doorway. What could be a more perfect long-term solution?
As the days with The Great Wall turned to weeks, the luster of this hastily conceived solution began to fade. The cats, surprisingly not content living in the bowels of the house, began trying to dig their way out at the base of The Great Wall, hacking at the bottom of the box like Freddy Krueger on holiday at a daycare facility.
Inevitably, the cats figured out that at this point almost any force could move this rapidly deteriorating box enough for them to squeeze through - we had our first breakout, discovered just before dawn as the young and old cats rumbled on top of my once peacefully snoozing self in the master bedroom.
Noting the box seemed to collapse as a result of the cats jumping against it, I added a shower curtain rod to support The Great Wall, to no great effect. The cats escaped again as easily as Eastwood leaving Alcatraz.
It was time to think outside the box, hilarious pun laboriously intended. I reacquired two short metal baby gates from some good friends we had loaned them to - they were only using them to prevent their 16 month old from plummeting down three flights of hardwood stairs in their home, so I'm sure they were happy to contribute to my mission.
I now installed the baby gates on top of each other and topped them with a hanging shower curtain to prevent a leaping escape. I went to bed confident that night, knowing that the Iron Curtain would surely hold.
The next morning when I awoke, the young cats were strutting around the kitchen like they owned the place.
I stormed out the door to the local Home Depot, found the answer to my problem, and burst into my house, somewhat sweaty and disheveled, declaring triumphantly and a bit wild-eyed near the top of my lungs, "Chicken wire! Ha haa! Chicken wire!" all the while waving the roll of jagged metal poultry fence in the air.
This mortified my wife, who was working from home that day and hosting a fairly important meeting at the time. The resulting awkward silence was worthy of a Dunder Mifflin seminar hosted by Michael Scott himself. With not enough pride left in my tattered ego to be terribly embarrassed, I turned and headed for the gate, determined to declare checkmate to my feline foes.
With enough chicken wire wrapped around the bars of the lower gate to instantly drop our property value by ,000, we had entered the end game. By that night, the young cats would have to concede and the senior cats could resume sleeping and shedding pounds of fur in peace, without fear of attack.
And, finally, we lived happily ever after.
Well, actually, no. The cats still managed to get out, most likely climbing over the structure, gates, chicken wire, shower curtain, large box and all.
But what the young cats didn't count on were the last three things that separated me from the furry beasts: a near psychotic level of desperation, a credit card issued before the banking crisis, and the phone number to a good contractor.
The doors will be installed in two weeks.
Man Vs Cat
A stay-at-home father, John Bryson writes the Smack of Ham Presents blog, a humorous look at life. Visit http://smackofhampresents.blogspot.com/ for an off-kilter look at topics ranging from Mr. Peanut to changing a lightbulb to a battle of wills with common house cats. Your experiences and comments are always welcome.
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