What Happened to the Rug

Yeah, I had to move the rug. Apricot was determined to nibble on it. Even when I had both corners weighted down, he pried a paw underneath the edge between the corners and happily nibbled on the edge and scrabbled with his claws on the top and the bottom.

I was not pleased. I have this thing about stuff staying put (cat toys are exempted; but my area rug is not a cat toy). That rug has been there since I moved in, seven years ago, and the only thing I changed in that time, and very reluctantly, was the orientation of it.

But if I left it where it was, Apricot would eventually damage it, even if he never got any more severe with his behavior. It would happen through simple repetition. And the longer he was allowed to play with it, the harder it would be to break the habit. Best to move it now.

I pulled the chair off it, a pull just short of a yank. Pulled the cat scratcher off it. Rolled it up into a loose roll (since I was only moving it from one room to another) and carried it through the hallway into the tv room. Let the tv guard it, as the tv seems quite effective in keeping Apricot out of that room.

And so it actually looks quite nice; the lavender of the flowers in the border is picked up by the lavender of the walls and the dark blue of the main part of the rug serves to absorb more light and thus make my plasma tv's blacks appear more black.

I wasn't trying to be scary, but nor was I trying to be calm and not-scary. I certainly wasn't explaining what I was doing because I was a bit put out and I knew it would come through in my voice.

Did Apricot hide? Did he leave the living room?

No. He sat in the living room in the middle-ish of the floor and watched the whole production. He moved to the doorway into the hall to watch, and then had the entire carpet carried over his head because he was in the way. And he followed me down the hall to see what I was going to do with it.

He didn't, however, go in the tv room, and hasn't since then (I shut the door while I was at work today). Perhaps the tv will be a good guardian of the rug. Also, it might be a different rug in a different room; you never know how a cat will interpret something.

And now my living room looks even bigger ...