I’ve always been an inventor. Ever since I can remember I’ve found new or alternate ways of doing things. When I was a teenager I had an old TV in my bedroom. It was sitting on the opposite side of the room and if I was watching TV in bed at night it meant I had to get out of bed to turn it off and thus become wide awake. I figured out how to put in a switch on my headboard and connect the wires to the TV so I could turn the TV on and off from my bed.
I could build things. I remember getting 96% for a woodwork project that I made at school and only 4% for the theory. Basically it meant that I could build it but I didn’t know how.
I built a cupboard in our spare bedroom in half a day. It had sliding bi-fold doors and a laminate exterior. Looked very professional. Took me weeks to figure out how to do it.
So it was that I was called upon to create a way to prevent a 6 month old kitten from going behind the refrigerator in our kitchen.
Angie’s daughter, Anna, wanted a kitten when they moved into their new home. Angie was not keen on the idea but eventually gave in and went to the animal rescue centre and brought home a female tabby whom Anna named Keeley.
As cats do, Keeley quickly made herself at home. She was often found coming out from behind the refrigerator and it was assumed that she spent some time there during each day. Probably the hum of the fridge motor or the warmth of air coming from the fridge was the big attraction. But both Angie and Anna were afraid the cat night be injured behind the fridge. I was asked to come up with something that would prevent the cat from going behind the fridge and yet not be permanent.
I thought long and hard about what I could make. It had to be simple yet effective. Look good yet be easily thrown away when the cat had grown too large to get behind the fridge. I personally wasn’t worried about the cat going behind the fridge: partly because cats have a certain common sense about these things and mainly because it wasn’t my cat.
But the ladies insisted. Finally after many weeks of thinking about all the different contraptions I could make it occurred to me that all I needed to do was move the fridge closer to the wall effectively making the gap too small for the cat. Duh! So I pushed the fridge as close as I could. But the fridge was located next to an outside wall by a window. The window had a ledge that projected into the kitchen making it impossible for me to close the gap completely. So there was a small gap at the bottom and because the house was old the floor was not at 90 degrees to the wall, the gap between the fridge and the wall widened towards the top of the fridge. Nothing could be done about that, it was now time for the test.
Keeley walked up to the gap, stared at it, stuck her head in, twitched her nose, turned around and walked away. The idea had worked. You and I know that a cat’s whiskers are there to prevent it from getting into a space that is too small. Unfortunately Angie and Anna didn’t have this piece of information. They both began protesting that the cat can still go in. To prove the point Angie lifted the cat and put her into the space between the fridge and the wall. The cat fit perfectly, “look you see the cat can get in” they both said and as Angie lowered the cat to further prove the point it got stuck. By this time Angie had removed her hand and the cat was just hanging there with its little feet pawing at the air, slowly sliding down between the wall and fridge getting even more wedged in. I was laughing hysterically as I moved the fridge and the cat got out; none the worse for its adventure. That’s when I found out they didn’t know about cats and their whiskers. Even when I explained it they had their doubts. Now whenever I tell the story it’s usually Angie who is laughing.
