lock (the door), stock (options) and barrel (of fun)

[sergebroom]

Five years ago, as a reward for work on yet another merger, our employer awarded stock options to many of us. We were recently told that, before the month is over, we had to either cash those options or buy them, otherwise we'd lose them. Of course I cashed them. A big chunk was taken out by taxes and stuff, but in the end I am now $3000 richer (or less poor) than I was last week.

That's coming in handy because the screen door that opens to our backyard is busted. We currently have only one door, which wouldn't be a problem except that it makes it easier for Agatha to sneak out. She always comes back, but there are coyotes out there. The other day, she did ask to be let back in when there was still daylight, probably because it was getting nippy, and because it was getting close to supper time. Of course, once she was warmed and fed, she tried to run out again. She was so eager that she actually jumped up to get close to the door knob.

Cat Genius indeed.

Besides that... It took weeks for my big office project to be ready, but ready it was yesterday. I stayed up until way after midnight to monitor the whole thing. And... It worked perfectly on the first try. Call me a grease monkey who can't design, will they? I'm glad that the fun's end is finally within sight.

Comments

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

A screen door costs $3,000? Prices are really high out there in the desert.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

It's not the desert. It takes a special kind of door to contain Cat Genii.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Hmm. How special, I wonder?

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

There's the DNA insta-scanner that immediately locks the door down with titanium rods if a cat's paw touches the door knob. And you wouldn't believe the power requirements for the emergency containment field built into the door's frame.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

But no tractor beams?

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Now that'd be over-engineering.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Naw, bulldozer beams would be overengineering.

[pedanther]

Do not let Agatha see this video. The last thing you want is to be giving her ideas.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Cue in the theme music from The Great Escape.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

My Smokey, who died in 1988, was very smart. He'd mastered doorknobs and was very close to opening deadbolts. I don't think he actually wanted to go out, he just always wanted to know how things worked.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Smokey, the MacGyver of kitties...

"Using some paper clips and a couple of rubber bands, I have improvised a can opener. Tuna, you are mine at last!"

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Hey, entirely possible. When there were repairguys here (I typed wrong, he died in 1998, so he lived here with me), he would be right there by them, following their every move. Most of the repairguys took it okay, but I had to put Smokey in a room for two of them.

He understood about 200 words and would do things I asked, like get my slippers and put the newspaper in the recycling bin. Even after he lost his hearing, I could thump on the floor and he recognized hand signals for things. When he died, the vet wrote me a four-page letter on how smart he was and how she'd never seen a cat like that before.

The interesting part is that I also had his littermate, who almost certainly had a different father, and she was mostly interested in sleeping.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Holee. He was a smart creature. Say, did he ever look for a door into summer?

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Maybe that's why he was working at the deadbolt.

And I should add, this is why the next cats were orientals. The vet said they're smarter than other cat breeds and I might feel better than with regular cats. They are smarter, but not as much as Smokey, and they definitely don't have the fix-it gene.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

"I'm not like that idiot Petronius. If you want a door opened, you've got to do it yourself!"

(Which sounds like a feline Heinlein and, hey, that rhymes.)

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

LOL Giorgio and Spirit mostly liked to dash back and forth and then cuddle. Now that Giorgio's dead, Spirit unhappily spends more time alone than she wants because Shiva, who is a tuxedo cat, doesn't want her attached to him every second.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Jefferson had nobody to play with until Agatha came along. Our dogs were more likely to pick on him. Agatha does a lot of that, usually when she feels like playing and our 10-year-old kitty doesn't. When he does feel in the mood, we usually hum the pon'far music as they go at each other.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

LOL Kitty theatre!