Once upon a time, Loiosh went up a tree.
This tree was at Dragonsspine fighter practice. Loiosh had been to Dragonsspine fighter practice many times, & I guess he was bored with it, because we hadn’t been there ten minutes or more before he bolted for the playground, wove around a couple of very startled children, & nyoomed about ten feet up a tree. From which he refused to come down.
I found a comfy spot on the low wall of railroad ties keeping the sand in the playground, plopped down on my butt, explained to him that he was on his own, & waited.
Cat’s gotta come down sometime, right?
HAHAHAHA no.
Loiosh stood on the lowest branch (which was, to be fair, still about eight feet up) & performed Extremely Pitiful Stuck Cat. Dragonsspine, being used to his antics, mostly ignored him, but a mundane couple attempted to rescue him through the expedient of putting the smaller half of the couple on top of the larger half of the couple, which was ineffective & also resulted in me finding out that the lady was recovering from a broken arm, at which point I begged her to please not break herself further trying to rescue my BUTTHEAD CAT, who would, surely, eventually, give up & climb down.
Time passed. Loiosh dramatized. I sat & was quietly amused.
Eventually it started to get dark.
Round about then a phalanx of fencers arrived. “He’s not gonna come down, is he?” one of them asked. Glumly, regretting my lack of a camera, I shook my head.
Slowly & painstakingly, the fencers constructed a fencer pyramid — no they didn’t, have you MET fencers, they flung themselves into a pile in various combinations until the pile stopped falling over, & then Stabby, the tiniest fencer (approximately five foot even & perhaps six inches around) ascended to the top of the fencer stack & gathered Loiosh into her sinewy arms, at which point the whole pile fell over again.
Loiosh explained to me, triumphant, that he had indeed managed to get down ALL BY HIMSELF.
All this is to provide background to last Tuesday, when, out in the woods, I heard Loiosh bolt noisily through a low stand of oak scrub, & then, as is his wont, climb a tree.
The tree-climbing sounds occurred for a distressingly longer period of time than usual.
In fear for my sanity, or at least for my ability to leave the woods any time soon, I stood from my comfortable chair, rounded the van, & beheld the following sight.
… at which point I removed my glasses, performed a vigorous facepalm, put my glasses back on, & in deep concern for my cat, went to get the camera.
Have you MET me?
There was, of course, Drama. To be fair, he was probably twelve feet up.
He managed to get a little further down on his own …
… but that was all the further he was willing to go.
I tried putting a hand up for him to step onto — he got both paws on it, but was unwilling to commit. I tried talking him around the tree to a branch that bent towards the ground — he shifted to other branches a few times, but not to the one I had in mind. I tried putting Tom up on the bendy branch in the hopes that he would go further up & lead Loiosh back down — okay yeah, I knew that wasn’t gonna work.
I tried precisely targeted embarrassment.
I explained to him in NO UNCERTAIN TERMS that I was NOT, by ANY means, going to pull the van up so that he could jump down onto the hood.
The whole time, he scanned the horizon, perking up when a car would pass or there was a rustling in the trees. I believe that he knew, if he just waited along enough, a bunch of fencers would come to his rescue. At times he would emit a tiny, pitiful mew.
After approximately an hour of this, I pulled the van over so that he could jump down onto the hood.
After his travail, of course, he needed a rest.
In my chair. Have you MET my cat?
Many thanks in absentia to the fencers of Dragonsspine, without whom Loiosh probably woulda just hopped down after ten minutes or so.
THANKS SO MUCH Y’ALL
This was posted originally to my Patreon, a little over a week ago.
If you want to see these posts sooner, & not incidentally help support me & my cats in our travels & such, the way to do that is to sign up as one of my Patrons for as little as a buck a month.
I’d REALLY like that.
