Treasure Hunting

I was looking through some old photographs just now and came across this one of Pete that I had taken a couple of years ago.  Although he sleeps like this all the time, this was one instant when I was able to get a decent picture of him before he realized what I was doing and set out to thwart me.

He looks pretty sweet and innocent in this picture, but don’t let that fool you.  He’s exceptionally tough and is willing to stand up to anyone in order to get his way.  That is, he’s willing to stand up to you if he knows you.  If he doesn’t know you, he’s quick to run in the kitchen, open the cabinet under the sink, and hide until he thinks it’s safe.

Oh, and I found this photograph, too, that still makes me laugh.

Several months ago when I was up near Gerlach-Empire, I noticed that the giant Shrek that had been welcoming cars to that area of the world for so long was missing.  After scanning the area a bit more, I found him in this bin.  I was told that the high winds had blown him over, but it sort of looks like he just wanted to take a nap, too.  I wonder what Pete would have done if he saw that.  

I was doing laundry today and reached into the back of the dryer to clean out the lint from that little dryer-lint collection thingy.  As I was pulling it out to throw it away, I accidentally dropped it on the floor.  Before I had a chance to pick it up, my cat Pipper had grabbed it and taken off into the other room. 

When I found her, she had already put it down on the floor and was using it as a makeshift bed.  Pretty soon, my other cat Pete saw that Pipper had a new toy, and he rushed over to join her.  They were having such a blast with that mess of dryer lint that I almost didn’t want to take it away from them.  But then I had visions of it being torn up all over the house so I wrestled it away from the two scamps and threw them hair ties to play with.

As I was throwing away the lint, I was muttering to myself about what kind of creatures think that dryer lint, bottle caps, and hair ties are the best things in the world.  Then, I stopped.  I realized that this was the same type of reaction that I got from a lot of people when they found out about my obsession for collecting rocks and other “miscellaneous” things that I find out in the desert and mountains.  I never pay any attention to them because I know that going out and looking for these things makes me happy. 

So I promised myself that I was going to let my junkyard cats just do their thing as long as it wasn’t hurting anyone, especially themselves.  Sure, it might mean there’s some extra mess to clean up now and then, but knowing they’re having a little extra fun is worth it.  And after all, in the world of cats, maybe dryer lint is the equivalent of rocks.  Hmm, nah.  They love the rocks, too.

Oh, by the way, in these pictures, Pipper is the calico up above and Pete is the grumpy-looking gray tabby to the right.  They really do like to have their pictures taken, honest.