I had a cat that would play a game with me. He would run very fast through the house....over the couch, over my husbands chair, across the coffee table, down the hall and into the bathroom; where he would jump into the bathtub and wait for me to come in so he could jump high in the air with his legs all extended to 'scare' me and then he would run away....
one day he started his round right after I had got out of the tub; I tried to cut him off but he dodged around me and dashed into the bathroom, JUMPED up into the air to get in the tub...looked down....saw that the tub was still full of water....it was JUST like a cartoon...he practically stopped in midair, turning completely around and landed hiney first and took off. (I tried not to laugh but it was hilarious) He wouldnt speak to me for days
He didn't do this again for a couple of weeks....then one day he did...running 90 miles an hour thru the house, got to the bathroom and remembered what had happened the last time, and tried to stop. Well the bathroom floor is a little slick and when he slammed on the brakes, he slid across the room and WHAM into the side of the tub. (well I TRIED not to laugh again but come on...)
GREAT story, Jess, and beautifully told.
I had a beloved little Siamese named Lucy who would do something similar: She and my (then)husband used to play a sort of hide and seek, where he would go and crouch behind the couch, or the coffee table, and then she would come sauntering around the side of it, and when they made eye contact, she would raise up on her back paws, and lift her little front paws wide and high in the air like a micro-polar bear. (Then) husband would do it too - he would rear up on his knees and lift his arms up in the air in front of her, like they were doing giant greetings with each other.
Then she would run off one way, and he would run the other and "hide" again (it was a tiny apartment, and she always knew where he was). Then she would come walking around the corner of the piece of furniture and when they made eye contact, they would both raise up like polar bears, and the game would continue. She had the funniest sense fo humor of any cat I have known.
Lucy and I had a game too - when I would come home, I would leave the front door open, but the screen door would be closed. I would go right to the living room couch and lay down. Lucy would be outside somewhere roaming around, but when she heard me come home, she would dash across the yard, pull the screen door open quickly with a practiced flick of one claw, and come speeding in and land right on my chest on the couch, where we would have an enthusiastic reunion. She was one of the best cats ever, ever, ever.
I wish I didn't have to tell the sad part of her story - one Christmas, when we were away for a few days, my (then)husband's sister was supposed to stay at our house to cat sit. Well, turns out she didn't.
She just came a couple of times and threw food down for Lucy. Anyway, on Christmas Eve, Lucy was hit by a car and died, on the road outside our property. She had never been out on that road before, as far as I knew. It was a couple of minutes walk from the house. I think she was out looking for us.
She was still only about two years old.
One more story - when she was still very young, we had a table lamp that had this sort of bowl that wrapped around the base of the lamp. Lucy would carefully get up into it, and then melt from the warnth of the lamp into a perfect circle that filled the entire bowl, head twisted under, nose to tail tip, just a limp puddle of melted cat.