Liberating Ziggy

Ziggy is our cat. Mark named him after the David Bowie song Ziggy Stardust. Ziggy is hilarious for many reasons. He's a worrier, for one. You can always see the worried expression on his face... like he's constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop... onto his tail...

Anyway, last night I was laying in bed reading. Mark had already gone to sleep. I had the bedside lamp on, otherwise the room was dark. Quinn was sleeping at the foot of the bed. I could hear Ziggy walking around on the floor. His nails make little click-click sounds on the hardwood. Then, I heard Ziggy go into my closet. There are two closets in our bedroom. Mine is on the left. I always leave the doors open (actually, I always leave most doors of most things open, much to Mark's continued dismay). I heard Ziggy doing... something... in my closet. It sounded like he was attacking something. There were sounds as he tried to balance himself on my shoes. I heard his claws scritching on the wall of the closet. I tried to look down to see, but it was too dark. Ziggy is a dark gray cat and he blends well with shadows.

I go back to reading. More sounds from the closet. It sounds like a rhino is in there, not a small cat. I sit up in bed, trying to figure out what is going on. All of a sudden, Ziggy flops out of my closet onto his back. His right paw is stretched up above his head, one claw snagged on a garment hanging in my closet. He wriggles. Think fish on a hook. His back legs and butt flop from side to side, but he remains stuck to the garment. He turns his head to look at me and lets out a seriously piteous meow.

I start laughing. I can't help it. I get out of bed and go liberate Ziggy from the closet trap. I pick him up and transfer him to bed while laughing. Ziggy is indignant. He meows. He seems to be saying "Quit laughing at me." But I don't. I can't. Ziggy tries so hard to be a distinguished gentleman, then gets stuck in the closet.

Of course, Mark woke up because I was laughing so hard. He looks at me. Mark gets this look on his face when I'm laughing hysterically at something that he thinks is only mildly amusing. That's the look I get as I explain what happened.

"I had to liberate Ziggy," I said. "He got stuck in the closet."

Mark sort of grunts at me.

"It was really funny."

He rolls over.

"He was stuck in the closet," I say. One last attempt to get him to understand the hilarity.

I don't think he fully grasped the humor of the situation.