KnitWerk

Husband and I, after 12 years together, finally bought new furniture for the living room. It was delivered Saturday afternoon. Hurrah!

It meant, though, that we’d need to move the old stuff. The chair was no big deal, but the old couch—oh, my. It’s an 8-foot sleeper sofa, so those who’ve moved furniture before know that it’s A) unreasonably heavy, and B) difficult to maneuver around corners.

So, of course, we want to use the old sofa to complete a sanctuary in the spare bedroom at the end of a narrow hallway. As much as I’d like to believe that I’m very strong and capable of heavy lifting, I have to admit that Husband did a full 85% of the work. My actual role: balance stuff, fetch things, or suggest “helpful ideas” while Husband grunts, sweats and lifts.

After grunting, sweating, and cursing that was impressive in its vigor and creativity, we determined that we’d have to put the thing on its end to get it around the corner.

This proved an opportunity for Wilson that was too tempting to pass up. His ancestors used to climb trees in Norway… Since at last check we have no Norwegian trees in the house, he’ll climb any substitute—including our backs and shoulders. An upended couch proved no difficulty. In half a second he was lounging next to the ceiling with an insouciant kitty grin:

Husband is in the background, enjoying the break, half appalled and half impressed by the cat.

We couldn’t reach him, and calling him didn’t work, so I got a treat, bent over and put it on my back to give him a place to land. “Good boy, Willie!” I said, when he jumped down to get it.

As I congratulated myself on my quick problem solving skills—those of you more experienced with the whole positive-reinforcement method of disciplining animals can predict what happened next—he immediately climbed back up.

Clearly, I’ve got a lot to learn with the whole pet-owning thing.