Old Mother Hubbard...

So our mischievous, conniving, and brilliantly wily kitty has come up with a new way of maintaining the focus of our attention, time, and energy.

One of the evenings when we shut him in his room (we do this to prevent (1) his rabid running up & down the stairs at 3am, (2) his meowing and scratching at our door at 4:30am; or if he sleeps at the foot of our bed - (3) him pawing at my or my husband's face/hair/arm at 5:00am) he discovered that he can open the lower cabinets in the bathroom where we keep his food and other kitty-related sundries.  This isn't an issue because now he has access to his food and said sundries.  This is an issue because he does not just open the cupboard and slink in - nay, he seems to ENJOY opening them just enough and then letting go of the cabinet door so it slams shut. 

"Bam! Bam! Bam!" was what woke me up one night at around 1:30am.  I thought someone was banging on our, or our neighbor's, door until I realized the sound was coming from Kitty's room.  As I stumbled into his room, turned on the light and then squinted towards the source of the sound, it didn't take long to realize what was causing it.   At first, I thought maybe there was a mouse or a bug in the cabinet that was stirring and, after hearing it, he was trying to get at it.  So I opened the cupboard he seemed to be focusing on and peered in.  All I saw was a box of litter box liners.  I just shrugged and muttered to myself and went back to bed.

Five minutes later, when the banging started again, it started to dawn on me that there wasn't anything in the cabinets that Yuri was trying to get to.  I had made the mistake of responding the first time and now he was using it as a device to get our attention and make us come into the room and pay attention to him.  Later it became a device for getting us to open to door so he could run out, upstairs in a flash, and out of reach.

Did I mention that the room on the other side of Kitty's bathroom is my landlord's baby daughter's room?  Plus, the repetitive slamming of the cabinet doors is REALLY ANNOYING.  I tried, once, to not respond - to see how long he'd keep it up before realizing that maybe my husband or I wasn't coming, and just give up.  He did it for 5 minutes straight.  I don't know if you've ever tried to wait something out that involves a loud, annoying sound, but 5 minutes is a really long time.  I finally caved.

SO... now, every night before we shut kitty up in his room, I have to open wide all the cabinet doors.  It's kinda annoying - but way less annoying than waking up in the middle of the night to "Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!"

I hate my cat.