After watching the amazing figure skating at the Olympics, I was recently motivated to dig out my old skates and take to the ice again. My husband, a hockey player, was inspired as well.
One lazy Saturday afternoon, we dug our old, musty skating bags out of storage. My husband plopped his down on the living room floor, and I put mine on the floor of my closet, with the door open. We then left them both there to air out while we went about other chores in our apartment.
A few hours later, we relaxed on the couch to watch a movie. A few minutes into the movie, we heard scratching and crinkling coming from the corner of the room where Rick had left his skate bag. I snapped this photo of the source of the sound:
Dean had found a nesting spot right on top of the smelly old hockey bag! And she didn’t move from that spot except to snack and go to the bathroom for the next 48 hours.
Later in the evening, I went to close my closet door. Before I shut it completely, I saw a flash of black and white. Sal! She was curled up inside my skate bag on the closet floor!
Why would these two cats, normally very conscientious about grooming themselves, want to be frolicking inside dirty, moldy athletic bags? I’d barely go near the bags myself until they aired out!
Then Rick made a good point. The athletic gear inside the bags is probably a highly concentrated center of our respective scents (gross as it sounds), and the cats, loving us as they do, want to be as close to those scents as possible!
So if that isn’t proof that our cats adore us unconditionally (even at our stinkiest moments), I don’t know what is!
—Jessica Bloustein
Photos: Top: Sal at the window; Lower: Dean nesting on the hockey bag
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