"Dear World:" (A Dispatch from the Cat Battlefield)

By Peter Rodman

Dear World,

As it turns out, ALL cat owners are liars.  To a man (well, mostly women) they told me, "Oh, no!  Cats won't eat wires!  Don't worry about it, you'll be fine!!!"
So eight days ago, I went ahead and got the kitty.
Now, I'm not saying I was manipulated at the adoption place or anything, but when they said 'Ethan' was crying because his sister 'Emily' had been adopted earlier in the day and they'd never see each other again, and then he looked at me like that...well, is this fair at all? 
Come on. 

And when I repeatedly asked about that "wire concern" of mine, my cat "friends" were unanimous about it.
"You're over-thinking this! Cats don't want wires. 
Do it!!!" 



Really?  Are you serious??
Because this kitty likes nothing better than to seek out and find the darkest recesses of my house and ATTACK anything that might send us up in flames.
But I am mightily determined to win this cat-and-man battle, so I've come up with one "solution" after another. (Total cost...you don't wanna know.) 
     First there was the "gutter" solution (hereafter referred to
as Solution #1), wherein Randy, a rather large but amiable guy at Home Depot, kindly spent an hour custom-cutting roof gutters, to help me conceal the tasty wiring, under PC #2.
(Illustrated below)
  

'Solution #1'

Then there was my own (ingenius, I thought...) Solution #2, crafted out of a piece of brown sheet-metal I found in the garage, bent around the opening under the equally massive corner desk (and attendant wiring) under/behind the unit I still like to call "The Mainframe."  (Which is old enough to actually deserve that title, thankyouvery much.)   
(Illustrated below) 



'Solution #2'
My incredible brown sheet-metal innovation!
...Biggest failure of 'em all.

  


 




Problem #3:
The classic (I thought) TV table,
with daintily concealed wiring behind
a custom-tailored Chinese silk curtain, cut-to-specs in Beijing.
No good.

  






'Solution #3'
Th new, fully-enclosed cabinetry.
Whether or not remote controls will
penetrate its glass...unknown.

 

And last night, they delivered my new 'cat proof' TV console, >>>
at no small expense,which amounts to Solution #3.
(So far.)

The score, so far?
Solution #1 ...sorta succeeded, by more or less boring him to death. 
Solution #3?  Not hooked up yet.
(Jury's still out.)

But the BIGGEST FAILURE of them all was Solution #2 (that curvy metal thing, pictured somewhere way above and to the left) as I discovered this morning.  (Ingenius, I thought...)

After locking my 'attack kitty' out of the bedroom last night (so I could finally get some sleep without ambush face-attacks, after a week), I awoke and simply could not find 'Ethan Buttafuocco' at all.
Now, this is a small house...believe me.
But nowhere was there a peep.

Not even from the forbidden places...or so I thought.
Because the hateful little bastard--okay, wait...did I say that?  I'm sorry...I meant, "my beautiful little boo-boo." 



Aerial view of the corner behind 'The Mainframe,'
where Ethan Buttafuocco remained trapped overnight. 



Because Kitty Boy the Terror, let's call him--managed to make an unprecedented overnight climb atop the Mainframe, then parachute in behind my bent-metal barrier, effectively trapping himself inside an orgasmic bed of 120 volt pasta...shorting-out stereos, computers, modems, cables, and everything else, all in one glorious fell swoop.
Unbeknownst to he, there'd be no escape.
The sheer six-foot Berlin Wall hadn't kept him out...but had kept him IN!
So here we are.
Stalemate.

I haven't even tried Solution #3 yet, but I'm skeptical, because already he's foiled every element of my 'Acme Anti-Kitty Security System.'
What to do?

All I know is, I'm writing you from the battlefront, just in case he finds a way to trap me.
If I should disappear forever, let this serve as my written notice to law enforcement that you have your suspect right here at Casa de Rodmano--and his name is 'Buttafuocco.' 

What's that you say?
...you need some sort of description?
Fine:
He is grey. He is furry.
...and he is formidable. 

   .
 

Yours in Abject Fear,

The Long Island Lolita


______________________________Copyright 2012 by Peter Rodman.  All Rights Reserved.