It's not that she bawls at weird times of the day and night. It's not that she still comes running every time I use the can opener. (Her cans of food haven't needed a can opener in years.) It's not that she runs in front of my car every time I pull in the driveway. And it's not because she thinks my ironing board is the best way to jump down from the sewing room window.
It's because of the ponytail situation.
When my daughter was younger she always left those rubber-band-y, elastic-y, scrunchy type of ponytail holders around. She left them around and the cat would find them. Find them and play with them. Find them, play with them, and lose them. In the past we've found them under the couch, the refrigerator, and the stove. We thought those days were long gone, but they have started up again.
My daughter comes home ever so often and occasionally she'll take one of those ponytail holders out of her hair and toss it to the cat. The cat absolutely loves it. She particularly likes the black ones and the red ones. She'll toss it with her paw. She'll fetch it. She'll throw it with her mouth. She jump, she'll leap, she'll pounce. She'll hide it under the rug and dig it back out. She'll run into the bedroom, drop it on the bed, and cry for us to play with her. She'll lose it under the chair and bawl for us to get it out. Every morning and every evening it sounds like things being thrown around the house. It's just the cat wrestling around the floor, tables, and furniture with that doggone ponytail holder. Eventually she'll tire out and fall asleep somewhere.
Today's sleeping spot was a small corner of the bed. Today I washed our bedding, all the way to the mattress pad. The cat likes these sheet-changing days because it presents an opportunity to hide in the blankets. Knowing that, as I was waiting for everything to dry, I made sure I piled the linens high enough that she'd keep off of them. Wouldn't you know she found that one small little space that was left open.
