Practical Jokes From The Cat

A cat sense of humor is a complex thing. As far as I can tell, though, it's fairly similar to mine--mostly inappropriate, multi-layered, and just slightly mean.

Take, for instance, the recent trap laid by someone in this household: I come home from work. It's dark in the kitchen. I go to put down my bags of groceries on the counter...

And step on a tack.

Luckily, I still had my shoes on (unusual, since I usually take them off first thing) and the tack had stuck into the sole. I felt something under my shoe and heard the plastic push part of the tack on the floor, so I put down my bags and looked to see what it was.

When I say "tack," of course I mean "many tacks." There were several in my shoes. And when I turned on the light and got down on my hands and knees (because they were clear thumbtacks and I couldn't see them without glasses unless I got down closer to the floor) I could see the entire kitchen floor had been booby-trapped with thumbtacks.

Very funny, cats.

Here's another example: On the days when I work from home, I like to sit at the dining room table with my laptop and other work implements. The unused outlet in this room is on the wall at the other end of the table. I plug in a power strip and rest it on that end of the table. That way I can jack in my laptop and phone, and if T is there, he can too.

I left the room for a bathroom break and when I came back, Achilles thought this was funny.

Not only is he laying all twisted up on the cords, next to the power strip... His eyes are open. And look at the position of his hand--hovering off the ground, as if frozen in mid-air.

Very funny, Achilles. You don't want me to play practical jokes on you, do you?

I'm thinking about taking the middle leaf out of the table and putting the cloth back over top. Now that would be funny!