Cats want to be naughty

Casper, in action.

      We have a pair of houseguests, Casper and Boo, taken in for a month. Our son's cats, now ours, temporarily. 
    The cats have been here before. We know the drill. Before they arrived, away went the Venetian glass atop my wife's dresser. Out came the napkin rings.
    Napkin rings?

Boo

     

     Any idea? That is the difference between you and I, and the genius of my wife. Cats can leap. Even onto the upper shelves of our hutch. And catches can knock things over. In fact, they seem to enjoy it. So rather than park all our stuff in a box for a month, my wife has taken to setting out golden napkin rings. For the cats to knock over — well, cat, singular. Boo is a sedentary cat, with no tail and a tiny head, the size of a ping pong ball, and hardly moves, never mind leaps anywhere. She's like a little feline cow. Occasionally she will pad over to my office, and hurl herself toward my lap, reaching it, with an assist from me. There I stroke her until I have a kitten of fur in my fingers. But that's it.
    Every morning, when I get up, I collect the napkin rings off the floor and return them to their places. Really, sometimes, I feel like we work for the cats. 
    But this is the genius part. If she catches him in the act, my wife scolds Casper. For knocking off the rings. That she placed there for him to knock over. Because she knows cats. And knows that cats want to be naughty. Want to piss you off. So she goes a bit of play-acting. To keep the cat happy.