Hidden Benefits

I have accidentally locked one of our cats in our den on more than one occasion. One would think one would learn their lesson after doing so. Twice. One would be wrong.

The scene of the crime:

The aforementioned cat was sitting on a chair in the den prior to my closing the door. When the mere act of vacuuming the room in close proximity to the cat didn't make him budge, I proceeded to vacuum the chair he was resting on. 

The cat moved, I vacuumed the chairs, then proceeded to close the door behind me. The cat guilty of hiding out under the couch while I did a visual check before closing the door was safely outside the room.

Then I left the house. For the weekend.

Did I mention we have two cats? We do. It was the second cat who somehow got locked in the den. For two days.

There were some minor demeanors of a cat in need of a litter box, but all in all the cat escaped relatively unscathed from the event.

The only victim was a huge box full of papers to be shredded. The box top was folded shut so the "liquid" did not infiltrate the entire box but it did necessitate cutting off the box flaps and initiated the process of shredding the first layer of papers-to-be-shredded.

One day at a time, one layer at a time, the cat-locked-in-the-den-incident has nudged me into action. This box of shredding WILL be dealt with. After months of procrastination, one ill fated weekend with a cat has forced me into action.

Our cat may require therapy to get over the emotional scars (in reality, he seems to be rolling with the aftermath rather well and had in fact dominated the couch in "his" den after the ordeal), but I am grateful for the much needed push to do what should have been done long ago.