Did I mention how badly I felt last night about shutting my Rex in a drawer? Afterall, that was the second or third time we’ve lost track of him and then started searching only to have him show up, curled up and sleepy, in a drawer that was shut.

Rex never opened drawers in my apartment or in my parents’ house (I had very little furniture in my apartment and my parents furniture was all higher off the floor and had handles that you need an opposable thumb to use) but he very quickly got the knack of hooking his paw underneath the ones here in our bedroom dressers and climbing inside.  He’s been doing this for weeks, sometimes waking me up in the middle of the night when he opens one to fast and it slams.  It’s not unusual to wake up and see three or four drawers open in the morning where none were open the night before.   I have been pretty careful about checking drawers before shutting them since the first time we found Rex curled up in CB’s bottom drawer a week or two ago but lately he keeps ending up inside shut drawers.  Every time I find him I feel horrible.  I feel like the most irresponsible cat momma EVER (and ask anyone who knows me, I’m a very very overprotective cat momma)….until this evening when I finally figured out what was really going on.

I had a pretty crappy sleep last night.  We ended up eating very late but I was starving so I ended up eating waaaay too much couscous, dates and veggies in the Moroccan tent before we headed home.  It’s been a furnace in Belgium for almost two weeks now (it finally rained last night but it’s still staying around 28°C* in the third floor here) and the bedroom is not very comfortable and I was also keeping my ears open to make sure there was no Rex v. Luna smackdown going on in the office while we were in bed.  Then Luna woke me up early anyway with her crying, so yeah, I was pretty tired today.   I ran some errands in the morning (I’ve been trying to keep up on bike riding despite no class this month) and got back a little after noon.  Rex, to my knowledge, was sleeping under the bed, as per usual and Luna kept climbing up my pants leg and dozing off in my lap.  I had noticed that Rex’s food and water was pretty much untouched but he does that sometimes when his routine is somehow changed so I didn’t find that very odd.  Finally around 2:30 I went into the bedroom with Luna for a nap (I fell asleep while typing so I decided I needed to lie down).  I noticed one of the higher drawers was open so I checked it and it was empty.  I left it open, in case Rex wanted to lie in it later, took Luna, and we both fell asleep.  I woke up around 5:30, right before CB usually gets home and I checked the drawer again.  No Rex, so I shut it.

Then, and I have no idea what made me do this but, I opened the drawer underneath the one that had been open.  And there was Rex, curled up and sleeping.  Apparently the master of illusion has been opening a top drawer, climbing back behind it, dropping himself into the next drawer down and then falling asleep.  In fact, aside from the first time he got shut into the bottom drawer, it’s very likely that he’s been doing this purposefully all by himself while we aren’t watching the whole time.

And I had felt soooo bad over shutting him up in a drawer all day.

My Rex is certainly a phenomenal cat, but if he ever produces seven kittens out of a hat in this house, it’s off to the Poezenboot with him!