It was like a scene out of a horror movie. Not one of high end horror movies, mind you; it wasn’t a Psycho or Exorcist moment. It was more like a moment out of a low-budget horror movie that the producers hope will break through to the mainstream instead of sinking below the public consciousness like an obviously mechanical shark.
In the middle of the night, I went to the bathroom. (At 61, that can be kind of scary, but that isn’t what I was referring to in the opening paragraph.) When I came back, the door to my bedroom was ajar, even though I remembered closing it.
Cue the foreboding music. Something with an oboe in it.
Here’s the thing: when my web goddess Gisela moved in, she brought two cats with her. Being allergic to cats, I needed a safe space for the times when I wasn’t so, you know, fresh (the times when, to get graphic about it, I would get all sneezy and blood-eyed), so I kept the door closed. The handle is broken, so the door doesn’t close properly, but Willis and Pretty Boy respected its closed nature. (Mostly. Willis got into my room a couple of times when I accidentally left the door slightly open; at least he had the decency to scamper out when discovered.)
My sister recently moved in with her two cats. Two cats who do not know the meaning of the word, “respect for closed doors.” They had somehow managed to open the door and get into my room.
Winter, the long thin cat, bolted for the door as soon as he saw me. Silver, the girthier of the two, looked like a cat in headlights for a moment, then ran under my bed. (Winter, clearly, was the instigator who had no qualms about leaving his partner in crime in the lurch; I would later find him pushing the door open with his nose.) It took me a couple of minutes to fish him out and place him outside my room…at which point Winter went back in. I had to chase him out all over again.
Herding cats? I now understand from firsthand experience what the phrase means.
As a stopgap measure to keep my sister’s cats out of my room, I put a box of books that I just happened to have lying around (occupational hazard of a writer) in front of the door. A few minutes later, I heard a scratching at the door, followed by a second of silence, followed by scratching at the door, followed by a second of silence, followed by… I figured it could only be one of two things: a zombie or a cat. I hoped it was a zombie, because at least I’m not allergic to them!
This scratching went on for two minutes, but the door held. The menace was over.
They always think that in horror movies, don’t they?
At three in the morning, the door opened with a slushing of the box I had put in front of it, and light from the hallway beyond began to fill the room. What the hell? Had Winter gone on steroids, or worked out at the gym, or both?
No. That would have been too simple. It was my father. Bernard had taken to entering rooms at will, regardless of who was in them or what they were doing. Like the cats, he was curious to explore his environment. Who knew what wonders he would find there? (In my room, the wonders amounted to shelves of books and a pile of dirty clothes, but regardless of what you find, exploring is its own reward.)
In fact, although we often described his advanced Alzheimer’s as returning him to childhood, it might be just as accurate to say that it had turned my father into a cat. He snootily turns up his nose at food he thoroughly enjoyed the day before. He communicates through a series of sounds that are not exactly a language. You cannot, cannot, cannot convince him to do something he doesn’t want to do; he may stop while you’re watching, but he’ll do it the moment you turn your back on him.
My 85 year-old father is a cat. I would be more grateful for the insight if it hadn’t come with the need to pop antihistamines like they were chocolate covered something tastier than anteaters!