Naturally, The Russian Judge Gives a Low Score

Is it possible for a kitten to have Down’s Syndrome?

What about some kind of profound autism? Perhaps I’m reading this all wrong, maybe he’s some kind of Savant. How would I know? How would I even be able to discover if he were some kind of Feline Rainman?

Here you be the judge, maybe I’m too close – perhaps I can’t see the forest for the trees.

How many times would you say you have to smash your head into something before you realized it’s NOT something you’d like to keep on doing? If it’s anything more than say twice, then perhaps you too have some mild retardation or at the very least a developmental disability…

Ok here’s the story;

So I have this ugly, but comfortable brown lazy-boy chair – if you’ll recall the older posts where I discuss “the bed-chair” then you will know which one I am talking about. Anyways, it sits in relative proximity to a much nicer, but less comfortable blue arm-chair.

Now when he was a tiny kitten it was all he could do to get up on the seat of the Lazy-boy, something he now does with ease, actually he now favours climbing to the very top and sitting on the back as he surveys his vast domain and all he rules.

He’s been doing it for a couple of weeks, recently he decided he had the strength and guile to majestically leap from the back of the Lazy-boy across the yawning chasm to the arm of the blue chair. A distance he may well have made, EXCEPT…

He forgot to take into account the fact that the Lazy-boy rocks and so as he wiggled his butt in preparation for this historic leap, and I drew in my breath staying perfectly still that I not disturb some random air current and throw off his carefully considered flight plan.

What happened next was in slow-motion.

It was clear the second his back paws left the Lazy-boy this would not end well. As he pushed off, the whole back of the chair rocked backwards, essentially adding another 2 feet to the jump, his flight vector was now, instantly and tragically off course, there was nothing he could do and I watched as he slowly realized he wasn’t going to make it, and I swear – he swore just before impact.

He managed to mash his face at full throttle into the side of the chair, it was like that famous Evil Kneivel crash landing in Vegas, where he lands and then his whole body goes into some horrible rag doll danse macabre, arms and legs twisting at impossible angles, body spinning over and over in a tableau of tangled carnage.

If there had been a live radio reporter in the living room I can only imagine the broadcast would have sounded very much like the man who reported the crash of the Hindenburg… “Jim, Jim… Oh God, the cat, Jim – the cat’s not going to make it, it’s a horrible sight to behold, oh the humanity…”

Somehow he manged to pancake himself into the roughly the width of a twoonie upon impact, back-end mashing front, hind legs and front paws becoming one… and as suddenly as it had begun, it was over and he was walking away, cool as a cucumber – Mortified I had witnessed the debacle.

Now, I could have chalked it up to the fact that he was still so young and finding his feet, learning what distance he could safely leap and so on…. but, and here’s where the retard part comes in…

…he keeps doing it.

Maybe it’s like the old joke, he keeps banging his head on the chair because it feels so good when he stops. If he would have just stuck the landing he would have had better marks all around and the whole exercise wouldn’t have been so tragic.

Have a Great Day