Falling in Love

For a moment today, I fervently wished I were married.

I attribute this brief bout of insanity to my (at the time) impending death. And it wasn’t because my life was flashing before my eyes and I had regrets about things I’d never done. I’ve never really had marriage on my life todo list. Oh sure, I suppose sometimes it would be nice to have another person around, but six cats and one big dog keep the bed pretty toasty, and I never have to worry about the toilet seat being left up.

No, the reason that I was hoping for a husband to magically appear was that I have a pretty intense fear of heights and if I’d been married, preferably to some sort of tree climbing high-rise construction worker, I wouldn’t have been the one on a ladder trying to grab the cat off the roof.

Here is a semi-accurate transcription of what the neighbors heard today:

“Guido, where are you?”
[Meow]
“Where are you?”
[Meow]
This went on for about five minutes while I wandered around in the untamed wilderness that is the back yard looking for the inside-only cat who had figured out how to unlatch the second screen door in two days. He always sounded like he was nearby, but on the other side of a fence. Finally I looked up. There he was on the edge of the roof.

[Swear words deleted].
I stood on a patio chair, which put me a good four feet under the edge of the roof. Then I got the kitchen stepstool. Standing on the “do-not-stand-on-this-because-it-isn’t-a-step-and-you-will-die-you-idiot” part of the stepstool, I was just able to reach the roof.
This approach would have worked well if Guido had come to me and leaned over the edge so I could grab him. Unfortunately, he was enjoying the spectacle of me trying to kill myself too much to cooperate. He did come within a foot of where I was, and leaned over the edge to see what I was doing. This led to the following dialogue:
“Guido, come over here.”
[Meow]
“Come on, just a little closer. I’ll scratch your chin.”
[Meow]
“Guido, you little bastard, get over here.”
[Meow]
Finally he got bored and wandered out of sight.

At this point I knew I was going to have to use the big ladder, which I’d bought at Home Depot five years ago in a fit of optimism. I’d brought it home, climbed three steps, and decided that whatever I needed to do on the roof could wait until Hell froze over. It’s been sitting in the garage ever since.

So, I dragged out the big ladder and figured out how to open it up, took a deep breath and climbed up. I’m sure my neighbors were watching at this point. Now I was high enough up that I could see Guido rolling around and sunning himself on the roof.
“Guido, come here.”
[Meow]
“Guido, you little bastard, get over here.”
[Meow]
“Guido, get your ass over here!”
[Meow]
“Guido, do you want a treat? Treat?”
Finally he wandered over close enough that I could grab his scruff, at which point he dug his claws into the roof and I almost pulled the ladder over trying to yank him off.

Word to the wise: if you are ever eye level with the roof, and you’re pulling the cat off the roof so you can get his ungrateful little ass down on the ground, protect your head because that’s going to be the closest thing he can latch onto.

Apparently both of us are afraid of heights.