Max Takes a Shower and Almost Gets Stuck

Today I took Max into the bathroom with me while I took a shower. I let the water run in the bathtub to get it warm while I combed out my hair. When you have waist-length hair, showering with tangles in it is not recommended.

So while I combed out my hair, Max jumped into the tub and played with the stream of water.

Trying to catch water never fails to fascinate

He was getting bored by the time I finished and was about to leave when he saw I was doing things to the water end of the tub, so he came back to see what I was doing. What I'd done was close the valve so the water starts collecting instead of running down the drain. He observed the puddle coming closer to him with equal bits fascination and alarm, and decided that he would leave after all.

As he left, I stepped into the tub, just in time for him to see me deliberately put my feet into the puddle of water that had just driven him off. So he had to jump up on the side of the tub to watch this process, in case I was doing anything particularly useful to know (like how to deal with water puddles). 

Now my shower switch doesn't work (leaves most of the water still coming out of the faucet) so I use that over-the-faucet shower thingy you can see hanging beyond Max in the picture. This does mean that I can get my hair wet with Max sitting on the edge of the tub and the shower curtain pushed back without getting water spray all over the bathroom.

Luckily Max has a short attention span, and he jumped down (on the non-water side) before I'd gotten to the point where I need to hold the shower thingy above me (which does get water everywhere). I closed the curtain after he jumped down.

Up came an inquisitive paw to push the curtain back. I helped (he only had the curtain, not the liner, which wouldn't have done him much good in the seeing department). He saw that nothing had changed so he let the curtain drop back, and I continued with my bath.

When I'm done, I have to rub hair oil through my hair or it gets all kinds of split ends. But you don't need the water to do this. I unhooked the shower thingy, turned off the hot water, and let the cold water run down the drain (tub having previously been drained) while I did the hair oil. (It takes ages.) I was expecting Max to come investigate, but by the time he did, I'd forgotten why I left the water running, and was very surprised when fur brushed by my leg. He'd come in on the far end of the tub in case that puddle was still hanging about.

So he played with the water some more while I finished up, and then (conveniently) he decided to leave again right before I needed to squeegee down the walls and tub floor and then dry them with the tub-drying-towel. This is because between the hair oil and the conditioner I use, the tub is very slippery when I finish, and is even more slippery if I let it dry and then re-wet it the next time I shower.

Max found out it was slippery because he didn't quite make it out of the tub on the first try and sort of tumbled over the edge. He rose back up over the edge from the non-tub side, wanting to see just what had tripped him! Often he will decide that these things are caused by me, but this time he saw I was slipping around just like he had, and I guess he had the smarts to figure out the tub was doing it to both of us, not me doing it to him.

Well, once the tub was finished with, I had to get the fingernail clippers out (one's toenails are softer and easier to clip after a bath). This meant that a new drawer was opened in front of Max. He was fascinated. Should have called him Fascination Max. But the drawer is little, and won't hold a large cat. The entire structure (two drawers on each side, cabinet in the middle) is open, however, so if he goes in the cabinet he can investigate the drawers as well. 

I opened the cabinet and let him in.

The hinges deserve investigation as well.

This gave me a very happy cat. He investigated, I clipped toenails, and all was well. Until I noticed he wasn't moving around anymore.

"Are you stuck?" I asked, observing he'd managed to push his head into the bottom drawer with the top drawer still above it. He simply tensed his body and pulled back, to no effect.

"I think you're stuck," I said, trying to remain calm, and instead envisioning a future where I had to butter my cat to get him loose. I couldn't free him by removing the top drawer; it runs on metal plates which don't come out when the drawer does. I couldn't free him by removing the bottom drawer, either, since it has a "stop" and won't come out the whole way.

So I wiggled my hand in next to his head, and felt around, and decided that if I tilted his head up a little, it would make it narrow enough to be pulled back through (kind of like turning your shoulders sideways to get through a narrow spot). 

Much to my relief, this worked. Max didn't even try to bite me for the liberty I'd been taking with manipulating bits of him (he often objects to that sort of thing).

He did, however, have to wash his dignity.

Dignity must be maintained.