The Ball in the BathTub

This is a story about power. This is a story about jealousy and a ball in the bathtub. Yesterday I was taking a shower and heard a loud clunk at my feet and felt an object rolling around in the steamy shower water. Luna our Jack Russell terrier loves to bring me her toys when I am taking a shower. Against all the rules of gravity she has zero interest in getting them out of the tub. This is her power play. She drops her toys in the tub and expects me to retrieve them for her.  A few weeks ago I became wise to her game and decided to just let her toys in the tub. This simply eliminates her bugging me ten minutes later. She is not adept enough to scale that 14 inch barrier to retrieve her ball. She will sit in the bathroom and bark, mindlessly yelping, hoping  somebody gets her ball.

The ball has been in the tub for the last day. We have two young kittens named Bobo and Sinclair. They have their own room during the day. We let them out at night hoping they become friends with Cooper and Luna. Cooper is nonplussed by the new members of the family. Jack Russells are incapable of being nonplussed.

Well tonight Bobo and Sinc made a beeline to the bathtub where the ball in the bathtub sat. They naively jumped in the tub and pushed that ball around, jumped on the ball and even teasingly pushed it toward the top of the tub. It was not a quiet play. To the casual observer they were trying to get under the skin ofLuna.

And damn if it didn’t work. Luna was completely beside herself. There sat her ball, now the playful toy of her brother and sister. Luna was humbled, befuddled and was played as only a cat can do.

The cats soon after left the tub and predictably let the ball sit all by itself in the tub.  Luna took a defeated stroll to the living room and decided to take another familiar path. With all synapses firing, she opted to steal a sip of my beer sitting on a table on the living room table. It seems the cats had thought of that first.