I know. I know. 2020 was the year that an American president faced an impeachment trial; a pandemic ravaged the world; economies across the globe tanked, struggled, and tanked again; civil unrest spread across the United States following the deaths of unarmed Black Americans at the hands of police; wild fires raged across the world including the worst fires in history in California and Colorado; the divided United States voted to replace a reality-deprived Trump.
Many of my fellow senior citizens worked jigsaw puzzles, binge-watched streaming services, wore masks (or did not), avoided group gatherings (or did not), stayed at home for the holidays (or did not), and generally divided along political lines of the dids and the did-nots. And many of us oldsters now swear like teenagers.
You'll recall that one of the earliest manifestations of Covid-19's many deprivations were toilet paper and cleaning products shortages. Luckily, just before the shortages hit, I made my last pilgrimage to a major warehouse store and bought a 24-roll package of toilet paper which kept us until it was again available, albeit in limited quantities.
Little did I know that "toilet paper wars" would have a different meaning in my little world.
Those of you who know me, know I have a cat. A beautiful cat named Kočka which is Czech for "cat." He's the smartest cat I've ever had. Too smart for my own good.
Most of the doors in our home have handle-style doorknobs and he can open them. My husband has replaced the knobs on those opening outdoors and into the garage with round doorknobs. We can lock our bedroom door from the inside which is good, because he doesn't like to let me sleep. I can be reading in bed, that's fine, but when I turn out the light and settle in to sleep, he scratches at the mattress just below my face or he rattles the pictures on the walls and knocks over the lamp on my bedside table. Anything to make me get up.
Kočka indulges in a number of other bad behaviors. The one I've been spending the most time this year trying to stop is his playing with the toilet paper.
At first I took the time-honored approach of loading the roll of toilet paper on the dispenser so that it unrolls to the back. Then I tipped the dispenser rod so that the roll was lodged against the toilet. After that I fashioned a kind of boot from a plastic jug to sort of fit over the roll. It was a bit inconvenient and in the end didn't thwart him.
So I blocked the door with a heavy box of kitty litter stacked on a shower seat. It did work to keep the cat out. It also made it inconvenient for me to get in, especially if I was in a hurry. And at my age ....
The most effective for the longest while was to simply leave the roll on the back of the toilet instead of using the dispenser at all.
That ceased to be effective so I hung a plastic jug from the dispenser hoping the noise it made when he batted at it would have the same result as it does to this day hanging from the doorknob of the guest bedroom door.
It did not.
Different friends and relatives made excellent suggestions. (Nobody suggested making him walk the plank or letting him sleep with the fishes.)
One involved citrus scent, which is supposed to repel cats. So I cut a length of cloth -- quite a pretty bit of cloth, too. I've made several masks with it -- and rubbed it with a wedge of orange. I ate the rest of the orange, vitamin C in the age of Covid, dontcha know. And indeed, when presented with the orange infused cloth he displayed appropriate disgust. So I hung it between the roll of toilet paper and where he would be standing on the bathroom floor to do his dirty work.
As you can see ....
The only thing left to do was bar him from the bathroom. And he does so love to sleep on the bathmat. It is, after all, the warmest room in the house. Of course, the bathroom door does not lock from the outside, and just closing it won't keep him out.
I gave up. All the loose, shall I say tenderized, toilet paper I stuffed in the medicine chest along with the rest of the roll. My arm is long enough to reach it from the toilet. However, if your arm is not, it's best to select your paper before sitting down.
Here's to the New Year. May 2021 find us on the other side of the genuinely horrific world problems and safely face-to-face, in person, with those we love.
