Peep looked up from her breakfast when she heard this and looked around the kitchen. Sheesh, he was right. There were muddy footprints on the floor. Most were right by the door because the Daddy usually sat down at the table to take off his shoes when they were muddy, but there was a path leading towards the bath and bedroom. Mommy wouldn’t like that.
She toured the house after she finished eating, and discovered a few other things that needed attention. There were a bunch of papers on the floor around the Daddy’s chair – almost as though he read them and then just tossed them over his shoulder when he was finished. The bed hadn’t been made, but that wasn’t a big deal – the Daddy would sleep in it again before Mommy came home anyway. There were also a bunch of dishes on the counter and in the sink. Not enough to fill up either, but he obviously hadn’t washed his dishes after breakfast.
The Mommy would be home in a little over a day and Peep didn’t want the her to come home to things that needed doing – it might make her want to not come home on the weekends at all. She’d heard Mommy and Daddy talking on the phone this week, and the Mommy was staying in someone else’s house, so she probably didn’t have to do any cleaning. Peep didn’t want her to stay down there all summer, so she decided that she needed to do some cleaning herself.
Last summer Peep had learned that cats can’t wash dishes. They just don’t have the body parts, nor were they large enough to handle dishwashing. So, the dishes would just have to stay. The floor on the other hand, she could do something about. Peep ran into the bathroom, and found that Daddy had left a towel hanging within her reach. Reaching up, Peep dug her claws into the towel and pulled it onto the floor, and then grabbed a corner in her mouth and pulled it into the kitchen.
It seemed logical that dragging a towel over a dirty floor should clean it. It was the same principle as mopping, or at least dusting, and those got things clean, didn’t they? So, Peep dragged the towel over the muddy parts of the floor – back and forth, again and again. When it started looking smeary, she checked the towel and determined that one side was just too dirty, and turned it over and dragged it some more. Finally, it looked almost as good as it had before the rain started. Peep knew she couldn’t do a perfect job, but she’d done the best that she could and was satisfied. She dragged the towel back into the bathroom, and carefully draped it over the edge of the tub, since that was where she’d got it from.
Now for the office. All those papers! Were they garbage, or were they important, and the Daddy had just become frustrated and tossed them all? Peep didn’t know, and she couldn’t take a chance and throw them out. She’d have to collect them and stack them on the desk. One by one, she carefully grabbed the papers in her mouth and put them on the desk. This involved jumping onto the desk chair and then the desk, and then trying to put the paper squarely on top of the ones she’d already placed. Peep thought the job was going well, although she hoped Daddy didn’t mind the teeth marks in the corner of each page. When she’d picked up the last page, she batted at the stack, trying to make it neat, but it wouldn’t quite line up. For one thing, some of the pages had become a little crumpled, because she’d kind of landed on them as she jumped up on the chair. She sat on the pile to try to flatten them out, and decided she’d done a good day’s work. She certainly was tired enough.
The next thing Peep knew, the Daddy was petting her head and talking to her. She must have fallen asleep. “Peep, what are you doing on my desk? You never sleep up here. Under the desk, yes, but not on top.” He picked her up and then noticed the pile of papers. “What are these doing back up here? I thought I threw these away last night. Darn junk mail – sometimes you can’t even tell that it’s junk until you get it out of the envelope.” He scooped up the pile and tossed it in the trash.
The Daddy carried Peep into the living room and settled down on the couch. She dozed off again, as he read his book, awakening only when he thumped down on the couch again, shaking his head. “Weird day, Peep. First my papers are back on the desk, and now the towel in the bathroom is filthy. It doesn’t look like anyone used the shower though. With the towel that dirty, the tub would also be filthy. I guess it’s just another one of life’s mysteries.
Photo courtesy of notoriousxl - http://www.flickr.com/photos/notoriousxl/3563796803/
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