The Contract

When we picked up Kink the Cat from the animal shelter they had an application form to determine, I guess, if we were Cat People. There was a question that asked how we would feel if our new cat scratched our furniture.

Well, having had young kids in a house I can tell you that ONLY scratching the furniture is a pretty minor thing so I replied something to the extent that cats are cats, cats scratch and that all goes with owning a cat.

I suspect they never read those answers, although mine was well thought out and from the heart. Really.

So, fast forwarding, Kink the Cat has been pretty good on the scratching front, although what he really likes is experimenting with gravity. If there is something to sweep off a counter or off a table to the floor, Kink is on it. He watches intently as the object falls to the floor and I'm sure he's doing advanced physics calculations that will eventually earn him a Nobel Prize.

Now, I've been warned to move all the stuff I care about away from edges where they could become physics experiments, but, as you know, I ignored that advice.

The other day there was an almighty crash from the living room and there was Kink on the mantlepiece looking down at the remains of a Hopi kachina. A work of art, the kachina had been carved out of cottonwood, painted and decorated, and had been on our mantlepiece for about 10 years. Why Kink decided to sweep this object to the floor after all this time is a mystery, but I had been warned. And warned unheeded is nagged to eternity.

Am I upset? Not really. Kink merely presented me with a three-dimensional puzzle to solve and we worked on restoring the kachina together. I glued and Kink tried to sweep the remaining pieces to the floor. What a team!

The kachina is now repaired and will live in a cabinet safe from the inquisitive paws of Kink the Physicist. Who knows? When Kink wins the Nobel Prize maybe I can knock it to the floor and we'll be even.

Yeah, that would be cool.



Guilty conscience.