Several years ago I had a delightful fluffy calico named Glenda who loved to hop into the dryer shortly after I took a load of clothes out. The dryer was warm and resembled a box. Cats love warmth & boxes. My regular laundry procedure became a matter of washing the clothes, drying the clothes, folding and hanging the clothes, and shooing Glenda out of the dryer.
That is a beautiful cat, pinkfreud.
Very pretty cat. Also VERY fuffy.
Yes. “Fuffy”.
I had a similar experience with my wife shortly after my son was born. I was at work and she was at home taking care of the baby. She was reading some paperback science fiction book (I can’t even remember the title) and near the end there was a very sad section where one of the characters loses her newborn baby. My wife got to this point in the book, and, having a new baby of her own, burst into tears. She was upset, and also a little miffed at me because I had just read the book the week before and I could have warned her that something awful was coming up. So she calls me up at work, sobbing, and says:
“The baby DIED.”
It took about thirty horrible seconds to sort out what she wasn’t talking about OUR baby. I was not sympathetic … .
My cats’ve never tried to explore the dryer, since it’s a stacked unit that stays in the closet, thank god. I have, however, caught Daniel trying to explore the dishwasher on occasion. On those occasions, a drill sergeant-style yell of “CAT!” usually works wonders.
I’m not a cat, but when I was a kid, I used to have the same attraction to dryers.
That stopped after my mother sat me down and, very seriously, explained that I could suffocate in our old avocado green dryer. She didn’t get into the other possible injuries, which is probably just as well – I’d never sleep again. :eek:
The cat’s in the dryer
with a load of whites
a sheet of bounce
and a pair of tights
When did he get in there
I don’t know when
But he had a bad time then
Y’know he had a bad time then
May I just say that I love, Love, LOVE the name of the website hosting that picture?
We lost a Himalayan to the dryer monster. Ariel sneaked into the dryer when no one was paying attention and my younger sister (about 11 or 12 at the time) didn’t check before she turned it on. About 5-10 minutes later my mom asked her if she was drying shoes, because something was thumping around in the dryer. M answered, no.
All hell broke loose a few seconds later when my mom found a foamy-mouthed fluffy corpse in the dryer. I’d never heard that kind of horrified crying scream before. S, the youngest sister, blamed M for it. M felt horrible. It was days before she stopped crying even though mom tried to console her, once she’d calmed down a bit herself.
Unsurprisingly, that was the last pet we got.
When my cat Sunshine was a kitten, I accidentally closed her in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes. No permanent damage; she’s just as dumb as the cat that wasn’t closed in the refrigerator.
Susan
Callie in the dryer. She hopped in at every chance - checking for cats before we put anything in is standard practice in our house.
Nixie used to hop into the fridge at every opportunity. We eventually cured her by just closing the door and leaving her until we were done in the kitchen. Never hurt her, and after around 50-60 repetitions, she finally stopped. (See, even cats can learn eventually!)
On Flickr, a search for “cat dryer” turns up 384 pictures of cas in dryers (including a few of two cats in one dryer).
It seems reasonable that cats would like to climb into driers. It also seems reasonable that if your cat does that frequently eventually once you’ll not notice it & end up killing the cat.
I see an easy solution: next time you see the cat in there, turn on the drier. I bet 20 seconds will be enough to ensure the cat NEVER does that again. It won’t be hot, but it will be very very scary. Most cats hide from vacuums, and once they understand the horrors of the CHAMBER OF TUMBLING DOOM they’ll be safe for the rest of their lives.
LSLGuy, please don’t try that. I’m sure that twenty seconds in a dryer is plenty of time to break the cat’s neck.
Thank you! Mortalwombat.com is my site. I used to post a lot of my photos and artwork and poetry there, for public consumption. I had problems with stalkers and wackos, so I shut down the public access. I keep the domain name alive because I find it amusing.
The King of Soup, I read this the other day right before heading out the door and didn’t get a chance to comment, so I bookmarked it JUST so I could come back and tell you that this is a simply brilliant parody.
I really love it. 
I think Weird Al has some competition!
Brilliant story! Fluff and Dry must live in horror knowing how their forecat perished. ( Or, being a Cat, were driven to try to jump into the dryer an any opportune moment.)
Fluff and Dry…heee. Good stuff.
Would this be the appropriate place to put in a snippet about a former coworker who accidently washed her daughter’s cat in the washing machine? Kids, don’t wash your pussy with mechanical means. It will end in tears.
Maybe I’m just really dense, but what’s the original?
I believe that’s Cat’s In The Cradle by Harry Chapin.
My washer/dryer are in the garage where the cats aren’t allowed but I do have a couple that enjoy climbing into the dishwasher everytime I open it, so I have to make sure all cats are removed before closing it and turning it on.
My kitten is not afraid of water, I can’t run water at a sink without her jumping up and trying to play with the water. Apparently she didn’t read the cat handbook about fearing water or she’s part tiger.