Great Birnam Chair comes to high Dunsinane dining room...

Tonight they made me laugh aloud.

Tonight, I picked up a few things that Buffy will be growing into out of the basment.
Among those things were a snuggli type carrier (which we, before Buffy arrived, tested by putting  La Doof Kitton in.  There was blood drawn; it's probably not wise to try it again.  For the record, he doesn't fit into Moby wraps well either.) and a booster seat-do-jobby- -(It is a wee tiny cheap plastic chair to strap to a larger chair)

I set the things next to the couch and went about my business--which involved trying to strap cats into the carriers (which entertained Buffy) and watching spots on the walls (cold medicine is fun!) and teaching about 'pet nice' (Both cats were very tolerant of their lessons and Dawg wandered about for several minutes (until I arrived w/ a burp cloth) with a large gob of baby-drool on her head--I swear she thought it was a badge of honor).

Then I heard a 'whump' in the kitchen.
The Mr. said 'I heard NOTHING' but by the 3rd time, we remembered that there were cookies that La Doof Kitton had tried to climb into earlier in the day (he wasn't content just stealing cookies, he climbed into the packaging and tried to pretend 'nobody here but us cookies!' was a valid form of camouflage, so continuing to say "I hear NOTHING" didn't seem wise.

I walk into the kitchen and all I see is a tail and the white of one back paw.

I wish I had a picture but let me describe it; do you remember when, as a kid, you watched a cartoon where a character hid behind a large stick and disused himself a s a tree?  or when they put a cardboard box over themselves and crept about and everyone believed it was a box?  But we all know that when, in real life, one tries such things, we look like kids holding large sticks (not trees) or a box with a girl under it, not a box stealthily moving past the bad-guys.

Well, apparently no one told La Doof Kitton that these disguises didn't work, he had grand visions of sneaking up on *something* and not being recognized as a cat.
A small blue booster seat with one paw and a tail sticking out, was slowly working it's way across the floor and had made it from the couch to the kitchen table.
I'm not quite sure what said booster seat was going to do once it was hiding amongst the big chairs; perhaps it was just waiting for an opportunity to observe chairs in their natural habitats.
But we need slightly bigger booster seats; ones that cover Scooter-tails and hind legs.

King of the Chair

This is how this game is played...(keeping in mind, it's hard to photograph these things one handed)
Place cat in office chair (in this instance, I lured the cat into a bag first, then put the bag in the chair...usually, however, the cat puts HIMSELF into the chair)

Sneak behind chair (and by sneak, I mean, go about as nosily and obviously as you'd like...but duck down so they can't see you. They'll forget you're there within 2 seconds. )

Tap human hand on top of chair thusly:



Continue tapping on the chair until the cat responds...this takes between 2 seconds and 15 minutes, depending on the cat. (The cat's response is designed to scare you. It's like staring at the toaster and waiting for it to pop up. You KNOW it's coming. You're expecting it. But you still dump hot coffee all over yourself when it happens.)

Responding looks like this:


And then the cat gets distracted by nothing and you grab it's paw:

And then the cat says "I'm king" and lays on the back of the chair. or back in the seat, depending on what inconveniences the people most at that moment.

At which point, a very ambitious/evil person may put the cat back in the bag and play with the arms...which usually ends up with the chair spinning until everyone is dizzy



Regardless, the game always ends the same way...with a satisfied cat sitting.aying anywhere he darn well pleases.