At around 1:30 in the morning last Wednesday, I became semi-consciously aware of something moving in the darkness next to my head. I opened an eye to investigate and could just slightly make out the silhouette of my enormous cat standing at the top of the bed. I know that his back legs were planted on the pillow opposite my head, and that his front legs were planted on the Mission bedside table next to the bed (see diagram below). It gets blurry from there, but here’s what I think happened:
I numbly tried to swat him off the bed and startled him, thus causing him to attempt a total move to the bedside table, a piece of furniture that is sub-stable at best, and whose surface area, even when free of other items, is not large enough to accommodate my giant cat. Incidentally, said surface was not cleared of other objects (see diagram again), but was serving as a home for a metal and glass candelabra of sorts which contained stones instead of candles.
You don’t need a physics lesson to understand what happened next. I couldn’t give you one anyway, but I can provide a brief recap:
The cat is huge.
The table is unstable.
The cat tried to jump on the table.
The candelabra/stone vessel on the table is part glass.
It all happened in a matter of seconds: swat…thud*…and then crash**crash***crash****…and finally, lots of swearing and the sounds of angry vacuuming. The only good thing I have to say about this incident is that my child made one small “eh…sigh” and went soundly back to sleep. Which is the only reason my cat still walks among the living.
*cat on table
**table hitting wall
***candelabra hitting the wall
****glass and stones shattering on the floor
one small corner of the universe 
our pets turn into hellspawned demons at night time… trying tricks they would never try in the day, all to wake our kid up and piss us off, I’m positive.
love the add-ons in the photo. And the next question: Why isn’t your cat sleeping with the child?! It’s never too early in life to sleep with a kitty.
very funny. what is it with cats that they need to climb near your head at night. I bet the cat was more startled than anyone!!
Did Bud and I ever tell you about a very similar incident in college involving a tall and unstable stereo speaker?
What’s worse… said unfortunate accident actually resulted in what could easily be described as felinicide. Well… to be fair… the feline perpetrator (aka Fitz) probably should have been charged with careless & wreckless furniture hopping and catslaughter… or perhaps felony death by electronic equipment.
Of course, since there were no human witnesses, conspiracy theories abound… the most popular being that Fitz had an accomplice, named Gizmo, who lured the victim, Gizmo’s brother Renfield, to the place where his lifeless body was later found… under the stereo speaker off of which Fitz so loved to jump as he bounded from one piece of furniture to the other around the small living room. It’s no secret that Fitz and Gizmo were thick as thieves after Renfield’s untimely death… unfortunately, no clear-cut motive was ever discovered… perhaps there just wasn’t enough room for three kitties in the litter box… or maybe Renfield was eating more than his fair share of the Me*w Mix… we’ll probably never know for sure… Gizmo has disappeared in recent years and Fitz just isn’t talking.
True story… tragic, but very true.