5:35 a.m.

I awoke to a huge crash.  The kind that has you sitting up in bed, wide eyed, heart beating, cobwebs flying.  It came from somewhere close: upstairs.  No cats to be seen and my kidlet was still sound asleep.  It was cold in the house this November morning as I surveyed the loft.  Nothing.  The only room left was the bathroom and there  . . . there, lay the carnage. 

Someone had tried to scale the five shelves of the bathroom linen closet.  The first shelve contains sheet sets and is so full,  there is not room for even an errant flea.  The second should hold the mechanical necessities of flowing tresses, but two blow driers, a curling iron and a flat iron were all either on the floor or dangling from their various cords.  The hand mirror had crashed and burned, face shattered in several directions.  Chaos had reigned. 

The next shelf up holds balms, salves, lotions, medications . . . the normal accouterments.   Half of them were knocked over, half were scattered across the floor.  The next shelve up holds towels, a lofty pile of softness and therefore the object of someone's affection, I surmise.  They clearly did not make it long enough to nest before crashing down amongst all the paraphernalia that fills my morning routine.

But no one was in sight.  Not a whisker nor tail nor soft nose.  How to flush them out?  I placed Ninja's kibble on the bathroom floor, Bear and Pippen's in the bedroom.  Still no takers.  This is a serious breach of cat protocol.

Finally, a black nose appeared in the bathroom . . . tentative . . . furtive.  A large brown nose, belonging to a furry explosion of long hair, sidled into the bedroom . . .  fearful . . . distressed.  A smaller nose followed  . . . skittish . . . alarmed . . . setting the larger nosed body even bigger and furrier.  The little nose scurried under the bed without noshing.  Wide eyed they stared.  Mute.  Uneasy. 

Finally, over an hour later, the little nose is curled in my armpit, the black one along my side and the large one nested in the living room hogging the first shafts of morning sun. 

No one will admit to the mayhem.  But neither do I think there will be another scaling of the bathroom closet anytime soon.  My personal bet  . . .  the smallest nose.