DEFY ALL ODDS

In the sitting room, there is a seven seater settee. In between two three seaters, there is a twenty centimetre gap. It leads out to the kitchen, the restroom, and other parts of the house. I do not like him to go there because there are many dangers out there. Okonkwo, the rat, may be passing by, a knife may be lying on the kitchen floor, and the bathroom floor may be slippery. So anytime he tries to pass, I snatch him up and drag him away. 


And there's that scream again. Yes, that one! But I ignore it. I feel the scream would be much louder if Okonkwo chews his feet or if he slips and falls in the bathroom. So, ChooChoo, your screams don't work no more :) As soon as I take my eyes away, he's back there, trying to pass. Then the Eureka moment comes! I can block that space with something, I say.  Yes, a big piece of something. Maybe, a throw pillow... Yes, I'm a genius. ChooChoo will never be able to pass. I do just that and he looks at the whole contraption with dismay, but I with glee. All's well with this part of the world. 


I'm back to reading my novel, and then minutes after I hear some scraping in the kitchen. "Yikes! Okonkwo again! Wait! Where's ChooChoo?" 
"Mfon, where's ChooChoo? I ask. What's that noise in the kitchen? "
Mfon comes back with ChooChoo in hand. "It was ChooChoo making that noise in the kitchen, scraping a breadknife on the ground", she replies.


Me? Outwitted by a crawlie? I look to see what became of the contraption. Nothing became of it. It was still there. So, how? I look back at ChooChoo and he wears the 'grin'. Yeah, you know the grin. It's a 'I'm a boss' grin. I look away and search furtively for the route of escape and I see it. 


The pillow is not quite the way it was before; it seemed squashed, and it is then obvious that my juvenile muse has showed me again why he is the boss. He squeezed past, flattening himself against the side hollow of the couch!


And this my friends is the lesson- DEFY ALL ODDS.