TIFU by talking to my cat.

Important context pt 1: I live in the upper level of a duplex that’s built into a hill. On the side of the house, I have two windows and one door. One window and the door open the porch, which is built on the upper part of the hill. The other window (my bedroom) is about 3 feet after the porch ends and overlooks the downstairs neighbor’s yard. The porch has a railing with spaces of a few inches between each slat.

Important context pt 2: My cat is indoor/outdoor and loves sitting on the porch to soak in the sun. He can wander out into the yard via the porch stairs and does so regularly. He is also a beefy boy. Not fat (no matter what any vet might say), but structurally sound. Up until this point, I had no reason to believe he could fit through the railing as he has never tried.

Important context pt 3: My cat is a ham of epic proportions. If there is attention to be had, he wants it. He will lay on my keyboard while I’m working, greet DoorDash drivers, wake me up to demand cuddles, etc.

So anyways I was doing my makeup this morning. My makeup area is by my bedroom window. It’s summer so it’s beautiful outside and I had the window open to let in the breeze.

Through said window, I can see the porch which, again, is about three feet away with the ground several feet beneath the level of the porch. My cat is out there, enjoying his morning sunshine sit.

Through the open window, I said “Hi, Handsome.” Handsome is not his name but he gets called handsome so often I’m pretty sure he thinks it’s his name.

My expectation was he’d lazily look over, maybe meow, and go back to enjoying the sunshine.

This did not happen.

The lil ham decided this was a call to action. An opportunity for affection and possibly more kibble. He got up and promptly launched himself through the fence slats in a heroic leap towards my window.

He miscalculated (and there’s a window screen so I’m not sure what exactly he was expecting to happen).

As a result he essentially cannonballed into my downstairs neighbor’s garden. This poor woman has spent the past two months or so creating beautiful flowerbeds. Which now have a roughly basketball shaped area of impact. Almost all of the affected flowers were crushed, plus a not very graceful path of trampled exit.

My cat is fine. I don’t know if he learned his lesson about flying leaps and gravity, but I have learned my lesson about assuming he will behave rationally.

I apologized to my neighbor and offered compensation or assistance replanting. She thankfully found it hilarious so duplex relations remain relatively unscathed.

Aside from the casualties among the flowers, no harm done. Thank god.

My cat was punished for his crimes with a sentencing of 25 kisses on his lil head. My leg was bitten for my stupidity.

TL;DR I accidentally encouraged my cat to torpedo into my neighbors garden