The Battle of the Rug

I have this white, tasseled rug adorned with a simple, blue geometric pattern.

This rug is a somewhat ragged, worn, and aged thing:

A light throw that sits innocently in front of the kitchen sink with the sole purpose of looking somewhat pretty and catching any drips of water that escape the sink or crumbs that fly in the midst of cooking.

There’s nothing special about this rug, at least to my human eye.

However!

For Yuki, this rug is a great fascination. 

As a connoisseur of chaos and strategist in the art of subtle destruction, this rug is no mere object—but a challenge, a battlefield on which to assert her dominance.

Virtually every single time she walks by this rug, a transformation occurs. 

Her eyes narrow, whiskers quiver, and before I can blink, she’s vaulted into a perfectly calculated sliding dive-bomb with all the grace of a feathered missile. 

Apparently the rug’s existence calls to her like a siren song.

Irresistibly intriguing. Impossible to ignore. An invitation to cause a ruckus.

The result? 

A jumbled mess of fabric where once there was order… A once flat object, twisted, twirled, and crumpled into disheveledness… A pile in the middle of the kitchen floor.

Naturally, preferring not to have the rug I often need to stand on existing in a crumpled ball, I restore order, uncrumpling, unfolding, and straightening.

Once finished, just for a moment, I once again feel like the master of this domain… 

But I know what’s coming, likely in mere moments.

Like clockwork, Yuki returns. She saunters near the rug, as if nothing’s amiss, and then… Boom! A pounce, a twist, a flip-flop, a furious wriggle of paws, and my carefully smoothed rug is once again a tangled mess of fabric, a monument to feline victory.

This, I have learned, is our eternal dance. 

This is The Battle of the Rug… Which despite the mild irritation, I’ve come to enjoy.

My inner storyteller is tempted to pontificate about the lesson or insight nestled in this power struggle—such as being a reminder of how little control we have, or how much we’re at the mercy of forces beyond our understanding…

But at the same time I know that the rug is simply a rug.

Yuki is simply a bundle of feline urges.

And for reasons I may never know, that rug triggers her instincts and unleashes great joy in her little body and mind as she throws herself into its midst, causing a stir.

With love from the forest,

~ Alexander