My neighbor upstairs, directly above me, has two indoor cats that she frequently lets sit out on the balcony. They’re nice enough, though the litter box is out there too so I can hardly sit out on my patio due to the smell of cat shit. I mostly don’t want to do that though, so I don’t worry much about it.
However, very occasionally one of these cats will decide to end up not on the balcony, by some means. It’s the second story, certainly not a short drop, I can’t imagine they jump down willingly… But somehow, by some turn of events they go from Up There to Not Up There Anymore. Since they’re indoor cats, this is not a situation they’re terribly happy with, and they usually wind up sitting on my patio, directly outside my bedroom window, crying and keeping me awake until I come let them inside where they wait awhile for me to take them up to their owner.
Typically this happens in the early morning. Today, I found one outside on the patio at 2am when I let the dog out to do her business.
First, I tried going upstairs and knocking on her door: it’s 2am, but she’s young and I frequently hear her coming home late. Plus, the light in the front room was on. Finally, I didn’t care all that much if I woke her up: I didn’t really want a cat in my apartment all night for many reasons.
She either wasn’t home or was ignoring the knock. Probably out at some guy’s house performing fellatio and getting fucked in the ass, or whatever sexual activities she enjoys.
Now under normal circumstances I’d probably be fine just leaving it outside. But the thing would cry and whine outside my bedroom and keep me awake, so I didn’t want to do that. Also, it’s an absurdly friendly and docile creature. If it had been a mean little shit, I might have considered throwing it in the dumpster or something else PETA would have my head for. But I couldn’t do that, so I decided I’d give a try letting it in.
Other than the dog being ecstatic (yet cautious) about our houseguest, this seemed to be working, except I was worried about it shitting or pissing somewhere while I wasn’t paying attention. This led to the plan of putting it in Bonnie’s crate. This could work… except after a few minutes of confinement it would whine. Didn’t seem scared or angry or anything of the sort, just a persistent, “Okay this is fine, but I’d rather not be in here anymore please if you don’t mind. Hey, are you listening to me? May I come out now? Thanks, that’d be swell. Oh you’re going to pet me through the bars? *Purr* Hey remember I asked to be let out? Mind doing that please? No? Ok I’m going to claw your carpet through the crate for no apparent reason now. Hey. Lemme out please?,” and so on, et nauseum.
The Specimen
Well shit. I’d really prefer the thing was back up where it belonged. That way it wouldn’t be outside my window keeping me awake, and I’d know it wasn’t going to be hit by the UPS guy or dump truck. Also I wouldn’t have to worry about it shitting on my couch. Or worry about the dog finally gathering up the courage to growl or bark at it and scaring it into clawing the shit out of her, which I was more worried about than Bonnie hurting it. Not so much because I cared terribly if she did, but it’s just not something she’d ever do. Her curiosity was insatiable though.
Bonnie inspects the Specimen thoroughly
I considered throwing it up there, but for a variety of reasons that did not seem wise. First, I still didn’t particularly want to injure it. Second, I wasn’t convinced I could actually throw it that high. Sure, it was heavy enough to, but with the thing thrashing about and its awkward shape I wasn’t confident I’d land it first try. And I think it probably wouldn’t give me a try #2, so I scratched that idea off the list.
The Obstacle to be overcome
So then… What would any neanderthal familiar with a basic understanding of simple mechanics do? Why, construct a pulley of course! First things first, need some tools.
Leader, used to thread the needle, so to speak
The Weight, attached to the leader and used to aim it through the railing
Rope, to fling over the rail and serve as the actual pulley.
Rescue Apparatus, to carry the Specimen via the pulley to safety.
There. Tools acquired. A few notes about them: The leader was necessary because quite simply, there was no fucking way I was going to manage to get the rope flung through the rail without it. It was just too unwieldy and imprecise to throw alone. So by attaching some dental floss to some kind of weight, and the rope on the other end, I could toss the floss through relatively easily to thread the rope through. I chose toenail clippers for the weight, which served a purpose beyond just the weight: a convenient way to cut the dental floss. Floss by the way, is MUCH stronger than you might expect–on one failed throw the weight caught my neighbor’s barstool you can see in the image above, and I pulled the thing about 2 feet before I was able to free the weight. The floss didn’t break.
Anyway, the first part was done. I’d successfully threaded the floss through and tied it off.
Success! The leader is hooked.
Now to tie the rope to the leader and pull it through… Getting the knot over the edge took some tricky whip-like motions to coax it along, but with a little patience, voila. I now had a rope slung over a rail, or if you prefer, a primitive pulley.
Whew. Managed to get the knot in the rope through the rails without breaking the leader.
Nothing left but to grab the cat, stuff it in the bag attached to the rope (had to have the bag attached prior to flinging the rope over… I didn’t want any remote chance of the bag slipping off, so I had to loop it through first). Although I had put it in a bag before without much trouble, getting it in one attached to the rope proved much trickier. So the solution was to put it in a bag first, then drop the cat in the bag inside the other.
The cat's outta the bag now! Er, in the bag, actually.
Even with this improved method, getting the cat into the bag attached to the rope was still tricky… But possible. Finally! Now I just pull this… No… NO NOT THAT! I made a complete rookie mistake. Didn’t tie off the opposing end of the rope, and pulled the thing straight over and off. All that work, for nothing. The dog peeked her head out trying to figure out what all the profanity was about.
WTF are you doing out there?
Oh well, time to try again. I could tell by this time it probably wouldn’t actually work. That is, I could raise the cat up, but the likelihood of it not only being capable of pulling itself out and onto the balcony, but willing to try to, were slim. At this point, I didn’t really care. I just wanted to complete my cat pulley. Because c’mon, who wouldn’t?
Practice makes perfect, and running through it once already made the process go much smoother. This time I tied the bitch off to a bush, dropped the cat in… and here it goes!
Cat Pulley... Proof of concept.
Just fucking awesome. A few tweaks and this could work… Use the top of the rail instead of the bottom… Maybe use a styrofoam ice chest for the rescue apparatus so it can easily get out… But fuck it, a proof of concept is good enough for me. All the rest of that shit just seems like work now that I’ve proved it’s possible.
I lowered the cat back down, let it out, shooed it off into the parking lot, and went to bed.
It didn’t bother me at all overnight. I’m guessing it decided it would take its chances outside without my “help.”
