The Hard Way or the Easy Way

by Phelicity

We cats are not the only ones who insist on doing stuff our way, even when it's not the easiest way. Birds do it, bees do it, humans, if they please, do it. In fact I don't think my human mom has figured out yet that there's an easy way to do stuff.

Take birds, for example. (Ahh, now I've got your attention.) I was watching a bird out my front door just this week, trying to build a nest in the porch roof. The down side, not the top. It wasn't a good place. Her little pieces kept falling out, and she kept putting them back. She hardly had time to go find more little pieces. And I was thinking, My, my, birds don't got a lotta sense, do they? There's a perfectly good tree out there she could have used instead. It would sure be easier, I thought, though I never built a nest myself.

But. It rains a lot here. Maybe she knows her babies will get wet if she hatches them in a tree. Maybe doing it the hard way will keep them dry later. The hard thing would be easy after they got there.

Take my sisfur, for example. Please. (Just kidding!) My sisfur Mewsette has a kitchen chair in the corner she likes to sleep in sometimes. It was her furmama's, so she inherited it. With a step by it, to get up there the easy way. She's sensible enough to use the step, except when she isn't. She fell once, trying to jump into it from the floor, too So she has a whole complicated "approach" system. She gets into another chair from a box under the table, being careful not to bang her head, from that chair to the table through a teeny skinny space, and walks to the other end of the table to look down on her chair from above. She examines it for booby traps, judges the distance, and jumps into it from above. The table's not forbidden, cause nobody eats on it. It just seems to me that's the hard way.

But. Maybe she heard about "Look before you leap". Maybe it's better to go down than up. At least the hard thing is easy after she gets there.

Then there's me, for example. I love heights, but I've got short legs and can't always get to them. My purrsonal favorite height is one I don't go to very often cause it's special. It's the top of the fridge. Also I gotta be real careful not to be seen, cause the way I get up there involves jumping from a place that is forbidden, which I won't name. I'm fast, and I've never been caught. Makes it easy to get there, two easy leaps. I love the top of the fridge! I feel like Queen of the World up there!

But. Then I look down. I don't want to spend the rest of my life up there. I don't want to go crashing into the dish drainer that's on the.. um, ..forbidden place. Remember I said I got short legs? Don't want to break one. It's a long, long way to the floor. The easy thing was hard after I got there.

So what do you think? Which is better in the end, the hard way or the easy way?

What do you mean, what do I do then?! Well, if you must know, I holler for my mom. If you must know, she comes and rescues me. If you must know.