cat saga

so. on friday, the bed we had ordered arrived, and friday night i decided to assemble it. alone. brandon was in iowa for his brother's graduation, so i decided to tackle the assembly--i am known to decide to take on feats like this, which usually end in tears and frustration.

first off, i come home to find a champagne glass shattered in the kitchen, and a vase knocked off the counter, prevented from plunging to it's demise only by the corner of a stool which was holding it up. great. first task upon arrival from work--clean up the glass that is all over the kitchen. literally ALL over the place.

so clearly the cats were already going bonkers, confused because brandon wasn't home. on top of that, these big boxes and packaging set them into a flurry of activity. i would have taken photos had i not been so focused on finishing the bed. imagine stuart chewing on cardboard, ben chasing his tail in a pile of bubble wrap, the cats running up and down the mattress which is leaning vertically against the wall. at one point stuart decided he was king of the castle--he was lounging on top of the mattress, laying on his back, lolling about. ben would run up, stuart would bat him in the face, and then ben would run back down. repeat 4 or 5 times. more tail chasing. then stuart would try and run off with the allen wrench. you get the picture.

two hours, some sweat and a little blood later, i was done with the bed and it was time to put on the mattress and box spring. the latter was down the hall in the bathroom, to help prevent the cats from climbing up and down it. i tried to slide it out of the bathroom vertically, which it turns out is a bad idea, because it didn't fit all the way through. the box spring is vertically half way through the door, stuck, and ben decides to climb up the box spring on the inside of the bathroom. while i'm trying to get him down so i can slide the box spring back into the bathroom and flip it, stuart climbs up on the outside of the bathroom. i now have a cat on either side of the box spring, neither really knowing how to get down, both pacing and meowing. because the thing is in the doorway, i cannot get a stool into the bathroom to help ben down. i try a number of tactics but none work. i then work on stuart, who just clings on for dear life when i try and pull him down. total failure. fast-forward 15 minutes, both cats are still there, i'm begging them to get down, it's midnight, i'm exhausted and on the verge of tears. i even try beckoning with treats and that doesn't work. ben FINALLY got down (dug his claws in, threw his back legs around and shimmied down), and about 10 minutes after that stuart got down the same way. hilarious now, infuriating at the time. i swear--do i have cats or toddlers?