I have two cats. One is a precious dumpling of happiness and one is a destructive force of nature, whose only goal is to escape outside, fight with the farm tomcat, and play leapfrog on the highway. The only thing preventing her from doing exactly this is a flimsy screen door, which she hates with the ferocious passion of a thousand slightly irritated black mambas.
Now, in previous years, because of my enjoyment of having my house below boiling temperature during the summer, she has had ample opportunities to express this frustration by way of shredding my screen door to a point where it became more of a patchwork of duct tape and string than it had been a door. Well, that ended this week. We have just finished putting in a heavy-duty, extra-secure, cat-resistant screen.
I had fought the battle of claws vs. thumbs and emerged victorious! If I were a sore winner, I would have videotaped her leap through the air, claws outstretched ready to tear a hole to freedom, only to find unyielding plastic. Instead I laughed and laughed, and laughed some more. Until she tore the first hole minutes later. Cat-resistant my ass.
Image: Amara Gelaude/The Cascade
