Warning! Blog cliche ahead!

OH. MY. GOODNESS.

I am the owner of what might possibly be the stupidest cat ever to lick his own butt.

See, now that Jillian is mobile (and FAST), we put up a baby gate to the kitchen because I’m lazy and didn’t feel like child-proofing 14 drawers and cabinets, plus the oven, plus the fridge, plus the cat food. Baby gates are a quick and easy way to keep the kid out of there altogether, so hooray.

The gate itself is not that high. It’s not even three feet, so I can go over it fairly easily to get into and out of the kitchen. We figured the cat would be able to jump over it as well, since he can jump onto our very high bed.

We have overestimated our cat.

Between our dining area and our kitchen, there is a pass-thru window. This is very handy for dinner, since I can hand things through the window rather than walk around the corner with something that might spill. It’s counter-height, which means it’s what, 42 inches or so? Pretty high for a fat cat.

OR SO YOU WOULD THINK.

When Jillian is awake, I have the gate in place to deter her explorations. When she naps, I usually take it out so I don’t die hoisting my fat ass over it every time I go into the kitchen. Today, however, I have not taken the baby gate down yet. As I was sitting here, checking my email, Chester came downstairs for his breakfast.

He’s afraid of the baby so he only eats when he feels it’s safe.

He sat at my feet for a bit and meowed at me in the way that he has when something is wrong in his world (which is pretty much all the time). I told him “there’s food in your dish, go eat” thinking that he’d hop over the baby gate.

He went through the pass-through window. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw 21 pounds of grey and black flab launch itself up to the countertop and through the window to the kitchen.

A few minutes later, he came back out the same way.

My cat. He’s a nut.