I was very lucky today… I heard the crinkling of a plastic bag, which doesn’t usually cause alarm because all my cats have done that stuck-in-the-bag crazed run around the house and they are smart now, aren’t they? That would be a no. Today I caught my beloved Ophelia, the colourful one in the middle of the picture at the top of the page, with her head and chest through the handle of a bag. I was in the middle of emptying the bag but there was still some crinkly paper (I’m guessing that was the attraction) and two coffee mugs in bubble wrap inside. I shudder to think what would have happened if I’d not gotten there in time and eased the handle off her head. She wandered away, completely nonplussed about her potential fate, and plopped herself down on the sofa for a nap.
For those who have never had a cat stuck in a bag, let me elaborate. It starts innocently enough. You hear crinkling coming from another room and you think “oh how cute, kitty-face is playing in the bag” and go back to whatever you are doing. That is the last moment of calm you will have for at least the next five minutes, which feels like an eternity. The next think you know there is a howling beast that is crinkling, crashing and stampeding at the same time. Through every room, around every obstacle, you will be chasing your suddenly demonic kitty and attempting to rescue it from its plastic hell. If you’re lucky, the cat will brush against enough objects to scrape the bag to pieces and will shed the implement of torture on its own. That is not always the case. The majority of the time, as you chase the wee beastie around the house, you will discover bits of plastic but the bag itself will be as elusive as the cat it is attached to. The cat will usually be found hiding in the centre of a king-sized bed and just beyond reach. Sadly, the only way to entice the terrified creature out from it’s protective cave is to send something under, terrorize it even more and then cat-wrangle it as it runs by and release the beast from the evil plastic grip.
At the end of the ordeal, one is usually trying to calm down a cat who is on the verge of a heart attack but at the same time trying not to laugh like someone possessed. Good luck with the latter…
The Witch of South Mountain 