Grappling Hooks

I was born with grappling hooks, all cats are.  They enable us to achieve things that would otherwise be reserved only to flies and lizards.

Over recent weeks I have watched a couple of mini-cats develop enough strength and confidence to scale concrete walls.  There are 'toe-holds' in concrete walls, even apparently smooth ones,  if you have small toes and built-in crampons and grappling hooks.  

It has been the feline version of 'Free Solo' on El Capitan.

You had to hold your breath for them occasionally, especially the one F called wee-bro-cat.  He would launch himself at the wall, stick like a lizard, and then inch sideways towards the ledge that had been his original goal.  The ledge was only attainable by a monster confident leap; to miss it would mean a three-story drop into the yard.  So for a mini-cat, free-solo technique was the only viable option.

F got tired of holding her breath and fishing stranded fallen mini-cats out of the back yard and putting them back on the retaining wall so she built a bridge from the retaining wall to the desireable ledge. That hasn't really advanced their education, but I guess they have learned the purpose of bridges instead. 

Even adult cats no longer make the confident monster leap.  F has in effect built a motorway through what had previously been a scenic beauty spot only capable of being enjoyed by travellers prepared to invest great personal effort. It would be like a road through the Hollyford Valley - sacrilege.

Never the less the bridge may have saved lives. At least one mini-cat disappeared before the bridge and we suspect a terminal drop into the backyard one night.  It was the mini-cat they rescued from the basement. It's fate apparently being to fall into things. There had been a clatter of falling stuff in the middle of one night and we looked out in the morning to see debris in the yard and never saw small grey mini-cat again after that.

MY grappling hooks have come in increasingly useful as my creaky limbs have, with advancing age, refused to lauch me to the top of 6 foot walls, or at the platform of my Condo. I can hook into and 'walk' up the sisal rope scratching facility. I do the same to furniture - much to F's annoyance. She put a box beside the bed for me, and I use it about 50% of the time. The mozzy net is a complication, but I have worked out that I can lift it near her feet and scramble up there without needing to prod her awake to open the net where the box is.

And here's the story really - last night I threw my grappling hook over the edge of the bed and pulled with the front, pushed with the back, scrabbled my way onto the bed.  I do this several times a night as I sleep all day and spend my nights communing with the darkness and keeping F regularly updated on happenings.  On this occasion F must have been sleeping with her right leg too close to the edge - it's all her fault - and I buried a 4-pronged grappling hook solidly into her right shin.

F kicked violently and I was more or less catapulted onto the opposite side of the bed. I had to dance around a bit to avoid being clobbered by flailing limbs and then purr in her face and pretend it wasn't me.......

This morning her leg looks like she has been bitten by a couple of vampires. I reckon that's what happened and I was just trying to see them off.