Can
You See Me?
When
she was little, my sister used to poke her fingers beneath
the bathroom door and wiggle them.
“Can
you see me?” she’d ask.
“Go away,” whoever was inside would answer.
She
would shove her hand further beneath the door.
“Now? Can you see me now?”
“Yes, I see you now. Can you please go away for
a few minutes?”
The
hand would disappear and there would be a light thud as
she leaned her small body against the door.
“When
are you coming out?’
We
were all happy to see that phase end, and I thought my
days of being stalked while on the toilet were over. I
admit to giggling when friends moaned about how their
children never left them alone, even when they were in
the bathroom.
“Should’ve
had cats,” I informed them smugly.
But
my life of bathroom solitude has been upended. Both
[of my] cats have recently decided they can’t abide
a closed door, be it a closet door, bedroom door, or—you
guessed it—bathroom door.
They
scared the daylights out of me the first time. I woke
in the middle of the night and felt my way to the bathroom.
Half asleep, I sat on the toilet, when suddenly,
“Whump!” The bathroom door flew open, and
a small tabby cat stood illuminated in the doorway. She
gazed steadily at me before turning away. My heart raced.
I felt like I’d been giving a warning visit by the
kitty Mafia.
Keep
the door open, or else.
I
alerted my husband the next morning. “Better lock
the door when you’re in the bathroom.”
“Why? Is asking you to stay out not enough?”
“No, it’s the
cats,” I said, looking over my shoulder. “They
don’t like closed doors.”
“Uh-huh,” he said slowly.
“And I should be concerned … why?”
But
Mister Oh-so-smart wasn’t laughing when the cats
body-slammed the bathroom door open while he was reading
Newsweek. I was upstairs when I heard his call for help.
“Would you get the cats out of
here?” he asked. “I can’t do this with
them watching.”
So
we started locking the door. That’s when tiny paws
began to appear underneath the door.
It was cute for a while. A tiny white paw would
slide beneath the door and tap the floor.
Can
you see me?
But then there was the talking. Finding
the door wouldn’t budge and unable to reach us from
beneath the door, the cats would sit outside the locked
door and “talk” to the person inside.
“Mrow.
Rowr-rowr. Mow?”
When are you coming out?
The best though, was coming
home early and finding both cats sitting outside the bathroom
where my husband had locked himself in. He was talking
back to them.
“Rowr?
Meow, meow,” said the cats.
“Yeah, I know. I hate when that happens,”
he answered through the closed door.
“Purr, rowr-meow.”
“Really? So what did you tell them?”
“Mow! Psfft! Meow.”
“Ah, ha ha,” he said. “You are so clever.”
“Honey?”
I knocked. “Everything okay?”
There was a moment of silence. “I have no idea what
you’re talking about,” he called back.
I wasn’t letting him off that
easy. I squatted on the floor and wriggled my fingers
beneath the door. “Can you see me?” I asked.
“Go away,” he growled.
I
scratched on the door. “So when are you coming out?”
“The
minute I do I’m having you committed,” he
warned. “Go away!”
And
so it went. We had pretty much resigned ourselves to a
life of potty-patrol, when luck struck. Running into the
house one day, I dashed for the bathroom without bothering
to close the door. No cats appeared. Excellent. I shared
my discovery that night with my husband.
“I
broke the code!” I said. “We need to adopt
an open-door policy. If you don’t close the door,
they take no interest in what you’re doing in there.”
He
seemed less than thrilled. “But I like closing the
door.”
I sighed.
“Pee with an audience outside a closed door or do
your business in peace with an open one. It’s your
choice.”
“I
miss our life before cats,” he said.
He
has a point. It was nice when we had some say so over
the ajar status of doors in our home. Still,
even with all the bother, it’s nice knowing you
are so important to someone that every minute apart counts.
“Mrow?”
Yes,
I’ll be out soon.
This
story first appeared in Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover’s
Soul (Deerfield Beach, Florida: HCI, 2005) and is
part of the collection of short stories from humor writer
Dena Harris in her book Lessons In Stalking…Adjusting
to Life With Cats (Madison, NC: Spotlight Publishing,
2005). Visit www.lessonsinstalking.com
Hailed
as the “Erma Bombeck of cat writers,” Dena Harris’
stories appear in the newly released Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover’s
Soul, as well as in her new cat humor book, Lessons In Stalking…Adjusting
to Life with Cats (www.lessonsinstalking.com).