This past Tuesday I ended up talking to several different people at work about Colby and Thimble, and in each conversation somehow I managed to say that I hadn't gotten scratched because they don't scratch me. Except for once when Colby was small and I was lifting him to investigate the headboard of my bed; I was too far away and he almost fell and as he was scrabbling for a hold, any hold, his back foot got my wrist in a scratch. Which wasn't deliberate on Colby's part and I doubt he knew about it.
Well, saying it that often must have done it, because Tuesday after work I got scratched on both wrists. It was sort of Thimble's fault and sort of my own. He wasn't deliberately scratching me, but what he was doing was deliberate.
You see, here's how it happened. I was in the bathroom preparing to take my shower. As he's done for the past month or so, Thimble was inside the bathroom with me. The door was shut, and Colby was outside, waiting to play footsie, and sticking an occasional exploratory paw under the door in impatience for the game to start.
After I divested myself of my many layers of clothes, I realized that yeah, I should probably use the toilet first before my shower. (I hate doing that right after a shower because I never manage to get the backs of my legs perfectly dry, and so the damp skin sticks to the seat. Nasty sensation.)
My first mistake was not putting clothes back on. My second mistake was forgetting that I lean forward slightly while sitting ... the same lean forward motion that is part of the trifecta of signals to Thimble to let him know it's okay to jump onto my shoulder. (The other two are patting my shoulder with the same-arm's hand, and saying "come on up.")
Thimble wanted to be on my shoulder and decided that one out of three was good enough. He launched.
I didn't particularly want an 11 pound cat on my bare shoulder while I was trying to pee. So I fended him off. With my hands.
My third mistake was not having a squirt bottle handy, because that would have told him the behavior was unwanted in no uncertain terms.
He is very persistent about things he wants. And he wanted to be on my shoulder. So he launched himself again. This time when I fended him off, a claw on each back foot contacted my corresponding wrist, leaving a long shallow scrape from the base of my hands to the middle of my arm (but closer to the wrist than the elbow).
Well, at this point I was starting to get upset and angry, which is no way to deal with a kitten whose only fault is wanting to be close to you a little too much and at an inopportune time. Luckily I recognized this and decided to simply put Thimble outside the bathroom door instead of trying to fix the situation any other way.
He was already coming forward again (my last fend-off had dropped him almost on the other side of the admittedly narrow bathroom) and so I just opened the door (which is right next to the toilet, bad planning overall but nice at the moment) and guided him gently out the door into Colby's astonished and waiting arms. Granted he was waiting for Thimble's foot to come under the door, not the entire Thimble.
Now Thimble seemed fine with me when I came out from the finished shower, and he seemed fine the next morning. However, I don't actually spend enough time in the morning with them to notice what I observed Wednesday afternoon when I came home. Thimble seemed a little standoffish. Just a little. Nothing big, no turned back or indignant glares, just a little uncertain around me. He had to be encouraged verbally quite a lot before he leaped onto my shoulder (in the appropriate place) but he purred once he was there.
I think I hurt his feelings!
Thursday he seemed back to normal, but Friday, on the next hairwashing day, he didn't want to come in the bathroom when invited. And Colby joined me instead.
Well, I thought, at least they can still play footsie together. Which, judging by the paws under the door, Thimble was very eager to do. I believe Colby played footsie during my actual shower, but for all the bits before and after, he was fascinated with what I was doing. Remember, he's never been in the bathroom during my shower before.
I let the hot water run and fill the bottom of the tub, just enough to heat the surface so that when I step in, I don't freeze my feet off on the cold whatever-my-tub-is-made-of. I also keep the tub outlet closed until halfway through my bath, and this gets the water up to my ankles. Making it easier to clean my feet with the skin soaked like that, and keeping me warmer.
Colby watched the water run into the tub out of the shower head which is hanging near the faucet. (The shower hose is flexible and I have to hold the end above my head to use it as an actual showerhead). He went to the other end of the tub, around the curtain, and promptly got in.
There's a layer of water already filling the entire tub. This isn't Thimble's get in the dry end and retreat hastily when it became apparent the water puddle was rapidly approaching him. This was get in and get wet.
He decided soon enough that he didn't want to take a bath and got back out again, but it wasn't the instantaneous launch you would expect. As he sat on the bathrug and inspected his damp feet, I looked at him in bemusement and said, "well, at least you'll have something to do." (I meant he'd be washing himself dry while I was in the shower.)
Now when I finish, there's a thin layer of water everywhere in the tub and on the walls. Because of the hair conditioner I use, if you let that dry, the surface of the tub the next time you get it wet is extremely, dangerously slippery. So I dry the tub. I have to dry the walls, too, because if I dry just the tub, the water on the walls eventually gets to the tub and then I still have the problem. (Yes, I found that out the hard way.)
It's a thin layer, but it's thick enough to drown a towel with all of it, so I use a squeegee on the walls and floor of the tub first.
But before I dry the tub, I dry myself and wrap my hair in a towel so I don't freeze to death (noticing a theme here?). And I was doing that, drying myself off, and hadn't gotten far when suddenly I feel fur against my wet leg. I looked down in astonishment.
Colby has gotten back into the tub, and is sitting on the bottom, watching the drip from the faucet. He's totally ignoring the fact that his tail, draped on the tub floor behind him, is getting wet enough that I can see from my height and without my glasses that the fur is beginning to clump together in wet strands. Which means his feet and tummy are getting that wet, too.
He stayed in the tub with me throughout the whole drying-of-the-me process and the drying-of-the-tub process. In which I got his shoulder wet with drips off the squeegee, despite my best efforts not to. He only left when I wanted to dry the part of the tub he was currently sitting on, as he had moved down to the faucet end and was almost underneath it, watching it drip.
I got out too at that point, because I'm done, and he washed himself rather half-heartedly as I got my clothes on. When I let him out, Thimble was right there and inspected him very carefully. He started washing Colby's wet shoulder immediately ... which was probably why Colby's self-washing had been lackadaisical at best. He knew Thimble would help him out.
So that is the tale of how I got scratched and how Colby got wet.
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