A month ago, Ronin discovered he could jump from the floor to the top of my tall stool. I have known from that day forward my work table, stove and kitchen counters would soon be conquered as well. The tall stool is only a few inches shorter than all these things, and he wasn’t straining to get up on the stool. Ronin is all muscle. Well, all muscle with a layer of baby fat.

The only thing preventing him from being on top of my most sacred of flat surfaces, at first, was simply the idea had not yet occurred to him. Then, when the idea did occur to him, he went about getting from floor to work table, the lowest of the Three Sacred Surfaces, by attempting a tricky diagonal jump from windowsill, past the microwave, to the very outermost edge of the table. The margin for error was slim for a kitten his size. The correct trajectory and speed were crucial.

His failure rate was 100%. I would hear him in the kitchen trying over and over again … thud [onto the windowsill] … THUD [spectacular failure]. I could even hear him getting frustrated. Ronin is one of the quietest cats I have ever owned, but he has a whole vocabulary of grunts, squeaks, and other unusual vocalizations that he mutters on rare occasions when he thinks no one is listening. I will admit to not stopping his attempts not only because I knew the feat was impossible, but also because listening to him act like a frustrated toddler was highly entertaining. Those of you having experience with frustrated toddlers know there is no mistaking the sound of frustration even when it’s in gibberish … or Cat Speak … and sometimes, it’s sort of cute. He wasn’t going to hurt himself (too badly anyway), and I knew the jump was not physically possible for him, so I just left him to figure it out on his own. He’s just too big, the table corner is quite small, and the microwave is very much in the way. All the same, he must have tried about a million times.

Two or so days ago, while I was sitting right there in the kitchen doing the dishes, Myu managed to get from floor level to work table level … without making a noise. I turned around to grab the stew pot off the stove to wash it, and there she was sitting on my cutting board, pretty as you please, being adorable. I shooed her down, noticed Ronin sitting in the windowsill, and guessed that being smaller and lighter, she had been able to make the jump Ronin couldn’t. I put a few boxes of crackers along the edge to deter any further work table breaches until I was finished with the dishes, washed the stew pot, turned around to grab the skillet, and there she was again. Myu had somehow found a way to silently go from floor to work table, and she hadn’t come by way of the window.

Doom writ itself large across the horizon. My Three Sacred Surfaces could no longer be safely assumed to be 100% cat free.

If you have two kittens in your household, and one of them figures out how to get into or onto something you would really rather they didn’t, this knowledge will be shared. Any important knowledge acquired is somehow beamed directly from one kitten brain to the other in, I suspect, a Borg-like fashion. How to get onto the work table was no different from any of the other knowledge they have passed between them.

The very next morning it was no surprise to me when I walked into the kitchen and found both Ronin and Myu stomping around on the cookie sheets on top of the stove. After an extremely long period of hand-waving, pointing, using the Angry Voice, and hissing noises (all on my part), which I would like to add only resulted in blank stares of innocence and an increase in cuteness from the guilty kitties, I finally just walked over and tossed them to the floor. I’d have said “DOWN” had I not been so winded from trying to get my point across in Cat Speak first.

Then, in an act of total defiance, they repeated the maneuver of jumping from floor to work table and walking onto the stove before my very eyes. I went and got the Water Bottle of Doom.

Squirt. [blank stares] Squirt … squirt. [one mew and continued blank stares] SQUIRT SQUIRT SQUIRT … SQUIIIIIIIIRRRRRTTT!!!!

Myu continued to stare at me, and then she flopped down and rolled over … ON THE STOVE … to beg for belly rubs. Ronin had lost interest in playing the Big-Eyed Innocent Card, and he was digging his teeth into my flexible plastic spatula … the one I absolutely must have in order to turn and serve my softly fried eggs … my most favorite spatula ever. Even with water rolling off their fur, it apparently never once crossed their minds to vacate the area. Or it did, and they felt a strong need to test their independence. You can never be sure what is or is not going on in the mind of a cat.

But really … begging for belly rubs while on the stove? Oi vey. It’s either the height of arrogance or stupidity. I’m not sure which, though it was sort of adorable, and I had to squelch the urge to reach out and rub that fuzzy belly. She’s really, really cute when she wants her belly rubbed.

They both earned a 5 minute time-out in their respective time-out rooms. Ronin goes into the bedroom, because he doesn’t go exploring in that room, and Myu goes into the bathroom, because she has already explored it all and is bored with it. Five minutes long because that’s how long it takes them to lay down, have a nap, wake up, and realize they are separated from their sibling and are ever so BORED … having long forgotten the exact reason they were locked in a room alone in the first place.

They haven’t been on the work table, stove or counters since. At least that is the delusion I am allowing myself to believe as I thoroughly wipe down my Three Sacred Surfaces before using them. It is far more likely they have learned one of the most important Cat Truths that all smart cats know:

There are things you do not do in front of the humans, but you do them anyway.