Loki Makes A Run For It

Yesterday Connor and I went and watched baby E again. That little chipmunk-cheeked girl gets cuter every time I see her, I swear. She was perfectly cheerful the entire time we were there, and absolutely fascinated with Connor. We had to turn so she could see him while she was eating, or she wouldn't take her bottle. I totally understand. Connor has that effect on me, too.

It was on the way to babysit that we ran into a bit of a snag. Getting out of our house has become a big production now. This is because every door out of our house has steps, and Connor, due to a previous traumatic event, will no longer sit in his wheelchair during any going up or down steps. This means I have to prop open the door and manipulate the wheelchair out with one arm while holding Connor with the other. There's a sharp turn the wheelchair has to take coming out the door, and on this particular occasion I ended up accidentally wedging the wheelchair in the doorway. I am balancing Connor on one hip and bending over while attempting to lift the wheelchair free using the other arm and hip when I see Cricket saunter into the room. "Stay, kitty," I grunt as I try shifting my grip to another spot on the chair while the little wiggly child I'm holding attempts to throw himself backwards out of my arms. "There's a good kitty."

Cricket looks at me struggling with the wheelchair for a long moment. You are an idiot and are embarrassing me, that looks says. I could do that better than you and I don't even have opposable thumbs. Then she pointedly turns her back on me and glances towards the entrance to the living room, where Loki has just appeared.

I don't have time to say anything to Loki. Loki takes one look at my helpless state and the open door, and his pupils dilate to the size of marbles. If he has a thought process at all, which is debatable, it could probably be summed up in one word: FREEDOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He sprints towards us, jumps up onto the wheelchair, and launches himself out through the doorway, using my chest as a springboard to change directions in mid-air. Instinctively I let go of the wheelchair and clutch my chest to see how badly I'm bleeding. I drop the wheelchair on my foot.

Loki is not an outside cat. He has never been an outside cat. He is the type of cat who, if he were allowed outside, would probably manage to cause some sort of international incident-- you know, the kind that involves air raid sirens-- and because of his cuteness, still manage to get it blamed on me. "Irresponsible Pet Owner Causes Nuclear Holocaust," the headlines would read. I keep him indoors for the protection of all mankind.

From the few occasions in which he has escaped, he has learned that he should get as far away from me as possible before beginning his reign of terror. This is because the second I catch up with him, he is forced to go back inside where he is only able to exercise his appetite for destruction by shredding unsatisfying things such as all of our toilet paper.

On this particular afternoon he takes off in a beeline for the neighbors' yard, leaving me hopping on one foot after him and trying very hard not to curse (Mommy said Faulkner, Connor! Faulkner!). Our neighbors have recently put up a fence: one of those cheap removable types that is made out of chicken wire and is about three and a half feet tall. Keep in mind that this is the cat who regularly believes that the peephole on our door is a bug and manages to reach it without any difficulty by jumping four feet straight up in the air. He reaches the fence. Does he go around? Does he scale the fence? No. He skids to a stop, places his nose into one of the inch-wide openings in the wire mesh, and begins pushing.

He tried this for about three minutes, long enough for me to get the wheelchair out of the doorway, set Connor down in it, and walk over there. Loki glances back over his shoulder, sees me coming and makes a frantic decision in an attempt to prolong his freedom. He's not just going to push on the fence. He's going to push really, really hard. He knows deep down in his little kitty soul that if he exerts enough pressure, he will be able to squeeze through that hole. The fence was actually bowing in by the time I picked him up, and he had a little square shaped impression around his nose. I laughed myself silly, once my foot stopped throbbing.

So there it is. I now have unequivocal proof that Loki has roughly the intelligence level of dryer lint.

Crazy cat.

~Jess