Around 10 am this morning, I decided I needed to wash my hair, so I locked myself in the bathroom, got it all nice and steamy, and began to enjoy my shower. At the very moment when my entire head was covered in shampoo lather, I heard a strange rattling coming from somewhere in the house. I try to ignore it. Then it started to sound a little too loud for it to be the crazy cats running around like the hellions they have been today and became more of a banging sound and less of a rattling sound … a loud banging sound coming from some unknown somewhere in the house.

I began to work quickly to get the soap off my head. Standing naked in a shower with soap in my eyes while hearing something like a bull or human moving clumsily through my house was, to say the least, uncomfortable. As soon as I was soap-free enough to do so, I hopped out of the shower and threw on some clothing, not even bothering to use a towel first. I left the shower running, because, well, if it was a person, I wanted them to think I hadn’t noticed the noise yet.

I stood at the bathroom door and slowly opened it a crack. The sound was quite clearly coming from the kitchen end of the house. I opened the door further, lifting up on it the way I have to in order to keep it from squeaking obnoxiously. As soon as it was open enough for me to slip through, I squeezed out of the bathroom and into the hall. I stood there a moment and listened. It sounded as though someone were trying to come in through a window. To say the least, my adrenalin was pumping. The sound was getting even louder!

Mustering my bravery, I dashed into the kitchen!

What did I find? A cat stuck to a window screen.

Since it was such a lovely day today, I had opened the kitchen window to let some fresh air into the house. Apparently, Ronin had spied some birds sitting on a stack of construction supplies right in front of said window, and he couldn’t help himself. He wanted to get those birds! Unfortunately for the poor dear, there’s this thing called a screen between the indoors and the outdoors, and he had managed to get himself completely stuck. There he was with his front legs stretched out as far as they could go and his claws stuck in the screen. He couldn’t stretch his legs further out, and due to the mechanics of claw retraction with outstretched legs, he couldn’t retract his claws. Therefore, he had been pulling on the screen for all he was worth, and considering his size, he’s worth a lot.

I should have grabbed the camera and snapped a photo, but I didn’t feel like either having to replace the window screen or taking a cat to the vet because he’d ripped a claw out of his paw, so I quickly removed him from his predicament, for which he was not at all grateful. Hell, he wasn’t even helpful. No, he was clearly panicking.

What did he do as soon as he was free and back on the floor? Jumped right back at the birds on the other side of the screen and got himself stuck again. Right in front of me! Just jumped right up and SPLAT … stuck again!

I closed the window to spare him both the aggravation of doing it a third time and the tittering snickers of the birds sitting on the pile of lumber. Those birds weren’t at all concerned about the big, stupid cat might getting them. They were apparently smart enough to know that window screens work … and they just had to be laughing at Ronin for being so silly. I know I was.