Frankie is like the child who keeps his parents on edge by constantly participating in risky or foolish behavior. This time it happened Thursday evening while I was in the kitchen.
I had a pot of corn-on-the-cob boiling on the stove when Frankie suddenly developed the zoomies. He came barreling into the kitchen, jumped on the small ledge between the stove and the refrigerator, pushed the pot over several inches, and then quickly jumped down.
I took the photo below a short time later. The stove was off when the picture was taken but imagine a red hot burner and think of where Frankie’s right paw might have landed for him to hit the pot hard enough to push it across half the burner.
I, of course, feared that he might have seriously burned his paw so I quickly picked him up and held him so my wife could examine it. She saw nothing wrong. Nevertheless, I watched him for a while but he did not seem bothered by it so I decided he got off lucky this time.
My real concern is what is he going to do next to scare us? How am I ever going to cook again without worrying about where Frankie is and what he is doing? Can anyone relate to this?
My wife bought some gifts Saturday evening and was given a large shopping bag to carry them in. When we got home Frankie was immediately interested in getting inside the bag. So much so that I had to move the bag to the bedroom where he couldn’t get to it.
I don’t know what happened after that. I’m sure Rose probably went through the bag and took out whatever was not meant as a gift. Whatever she did, she moved the bag and set it on the floor next to her closet.
We went out for lunch today and shortly after we returned we heard a commotion in the bedroom. It sounded like Frankie knocked the bag off the dresser, where I thought it still was, but the noise didn’t stop. Soon we saw Floki racing down the hallway with a large bag attached to him.
He ran up onto the table and then down under the table and then into the living room. We tried to stop him but he was completely freaked out. At one point the bag ripped and most of it fell away but there remained a large piece still attached to him. He jumped onto the coffee table and then up onto the sofa where he ran across the back of it and then back down. He then ran into the Florida room. I followed him out there and closed the door. He stopped on one of the cat perches and I tried to get the bag off him but the handle was around his neck and under his right armpit. I couldn’t pull it off.
I called out to Rose, “Can you give me the scissors?!” She immediately got them and brought them too me. Unfortunately, As soon as I tried to cut the handle the scissors broke. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to keep Floki calm for very much longer but then I remembered I had another pair of scissors nearby so I grabbed those and cut the handle off.
Below is a video of the last part of this drama. There might be some mild cursing so turn the volume down if that offends you.
Floki immediately jumped down and went into the cubby hole at the bottom of one of the perches. There we could see that he had a large amount of drool coming from his mouth. I assumed that is what happens after spending a long two minutes frightened out of your wits.
Fortunatly he seemed to recover quick and was napping next to me not long after the incidence.
Bag handles are very dangerous for cats. I have known this for a long time. Probably since Chris was young and almost got stuck in a bag handle.
At the time I thought it was funny but if it happens when nobody is around it could be life threatening, especially if the cat freaks out like Floki did. If we were not around and if that was a canvas bag it would not have ripped and would have eventually hooked on something and with Floki in a state of panic he might have been strangled. It is a scary thought.
Most of the time I do a good job keeping bag handles away from the cats when I am not around. I fold the canvas bags so they are not an enticement and I cut the handles off the paper bags I get at whole foods if they don’t go to the trash or recycling right away. Sometimes I do let them play but only if I am there watching.
On a side note, you may be wondering about the video. I saw this camera on Amazon on sale for under $20 so I thought I would buy it. I wanted something I could leave on so I can check up on the cats when we go to Germany as well as something I can use for security. The camera I bought takes relatively good quality videos for the price but it has issues that make it a bad buy.
It not only saves the videos in a format that my computer does not recognize but it puts every little clip in a separate folder. I can only view them using my phone and if I want to save it I can’t just download it I have to play it and hit the record button while playing. It then saves an mp4 file that has the audio and video out of sync. You wouldn’t believe the trouble I had getting them back in sync before uploading to YouTube. After uploading I noticed the end is further out of sync than the beginning. Lately I haven’t been using the camera but fortunately I decided to plug it in before we went to lunch.
Last night Rose and I were watching television and Chris was chewing on the power cord for the Christmas tree lights. We yelled at him to stop so he then started chewing on one of the light bulbs… while it was plugged in. I had to pick him up and move him two or three times and each time he would give me a loud kitty yell and then go right back to what he was doing. It was like he was enjoying the negative attention.
Now I worry about leaving the tree plugged in while we are in another room. I’m pretty sure he only does it for the attention that it brings him but I still have to treat him like a small child. He is a four-and-a-half year old cat with the maturity level of a three year old child. At this rate, I’m going to mature before he does.
Bad Cat Chris 