Brilliance overcome by being a stubborn cuss

Sometimes I am amazed at how my brilliance is blocked by my talents (the lack thereof). Such was the case recently when I decided to block my little kitty from jumping on top of a storage cabinet over my refrigerator.

Normally (not often in my case), 15-year-old Miss Kitty is clever, but her feline brain kept leading her to jump atop the cabinet from the kitchen sink and then “forget” how to get down. Yeah, right: Has anyone ever seen a dead cat in a tree? No! They just enjoy seeing firefighters kept busy for no special reason or civilians cajoling their brains out to encourage them to get down.

Anyway, Miss Kitty would sit on her perch and complain as only kitties can. I’d try to lure her down with kind words, sometimes followed by a few harsh ones. No go. She would not descend, but kept complaining. Finally, she would condescend to drop to the front edge of the fridge top so that I could reach her. Ha-ha. When I’d try to grasp her to help her get down she’d jump back on top of the cabinet.

This situation was boiling my brain. Thus, I used my brilliance to devise a blockade at the open edge of the cabinet. I found a 12-by-16 heavy duty envelope in my stash of stuff like that (envelopes, pencils, notebooks and the like) and managed to use duct tape to set it in the gap she used to reach her roost. Yay, it worked. For about a week before the hot air from my propane fireplace loosened the tape’s grip to allow my blockade to tip from the grip.

Ah, nuts. Here it must be admitted that I had to stand on a step ladder to accomplish my failed goal. Furthermore, at my advanced age and with mild acrophobia it was not an easy task, because I was fearful of falling off the ladder. As I live alone and sometimes have a bit of a balance problem ... well, you get the idea.

Continuing this sad saga, I scraped the bottom of my fix-it barrel talent and had a brilliant idea. Yes, let’s nail the blocking envelope to its former position. Right. OK, let’s use thumbtacks. Oh dear, balancing on the ladder while holding a hammer and some tacks did not work. The tacks were not strong enough, and I didn’t have a good angle for hammering. Also, I kept dropping them and had to get down and find them. I found two by stepping on them. With my bare feet. Then I dropped the envelope, and it cleverly went into the gap between the fridge and the kitchen sink. Ah ...

Finally found some nails. I went back up only to find that most of the nails weren’t long enough. Besides, I couldn’t hammer them straight. Arghh! Harsh words. Kept at it, though. At last, after dropping several too small nails and smartly smacking my left thumb while holding a large nail, my brilliant idea sans talent was finished. I was sweating and breathing hard (COPD, heart disease, fear of heights plus anxiety about falling and getting hurt), but thankful.

And I gave thanks that the lone large nail was holding the kitty blockade. I also apologized for my rough language. Then I smiled at Miss Kitty. She glared back.