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By far, Kelda’s favorite treat is water fresh from the tap. She’ll turn her nose up at tuna and all the other typical things cats love. She never rejects water from the tap.

We have a ritual at our house. Whenever someone uses the bathroom, they must leave the door open just a little in case Kelda should want to come in (which is 99 percent of the time). When she does arrive, the sink is turned on and the happy cats hops onto the counter, sticks her paw under the running water and drinks to her hearts content, or at least until we are done using the bathroom. (Hey- we may not pay for the actual water, but the water pump does use electricity!)

If you happen to be a certain 7 year old, you sometimes run into a bathroom periodically just to have the cat follow and perform the water drinking ritual. After turning on the tap and watching Kelda drink, walk off without turning the tap off. If you’re an adult, you’d notice some long amount of time later that water has been running for quite a long time and now you have to pinpoint which faucet is on. Kelda follows you into each bathroom and takes advantage of each faucet you encounter together.

With a five-person household, Kelda gets treated to water often, especially since one of the members (me) is pregnant and spends A LOT of time in the bathroom. For her, it’s cat heaven.

For me, it’s sometimes annoying because when I have to ‘go’ I don’t like having an excited cat run in between my legs, get in my way when I feel like I’m going to explode. And sometimes, when everyone is socializing in the kitchen, I prefer to close the bathroom door for privacy’s sake; the bathroom upstairs is in plain view of chattering family members. I either have to wait for the cat to come in the bathroom or just forego the normal ritual.

If you’re a cat owner, you realize that cat rituals are important to the cat. To change procedures is a definite faux pas (or possibly a deadly sin) in the eyes of a cat, which may lead to some sort of ‘cat riot’. I once abandoned the ritual of taking Kelda with me on a weekend trip to my sister’s house and left her with a cat sitter instead. When I returned to my apartment, it looked like a mini war had taken place there. Plants were knocked of window sills leaving good portions of the floor covered with dirt, tables contents were dumped on the floor, things were chewed up and scratched beyond repair, and one of my good shirts had become a litter a box. Needless to say, I never left her at home on a weekend after that.

She’s trained me well in her cat rituals. She’s even trained me for when I need my privacy and can't wait on her to enter the bathroom. She patiently waits outside the door for me to finish. When I reopen the door, she zips in, hops on the toilet seat and bounds merrily onto the sink counter and waits for me to turn on the tap, which, being so well trained, I do.

What I’d like to point out is that Kelda does, at times, use the toilet seat to get up on the counter. I’d also like to point out that she is, as far as cats go, not in any way graceful or even coordinated. Toilet seats and uncoordinated cats make for a potential disaster.

It so happens that we have encountered that disaster. Last week, I closed the door on Kelda, leaving her waiting for her treat until I was finished. I reopened the door, turned on the tap and walked out of the bathroom to attend to the dinner cooking on the stovetop.

I heard a strange ‘plop’ sound and then some scratching coming form the direction of the bathroom. I stopped what I was doing and went to investigate. I thought maybe a child was doing something potentially messy and I had to turn off the tap in the bathroom anyways.

Once the bathroom came into sight, I saw Kelda struggling to get out of the toilet. She must have lost her footing because the rear half of her body was submerged in the toilet. I did what any good cat owner would do in this situation- burst into a hysterical belly laugh. She managed to claw her way out shortly after. Her hind legs were sopping wet and her countenance was quite grim. Of course, I did the ‘Momma’s poor baby’ ritual in my most loving voice and told her ‘Thank god I flushed or else you’d have a bath and a good Lysol-ing’. She never did get to drink her water.

That incident has not discouraged her from her water ritual and she will still jump on the toilet seat on occasion. She’s a persistent thing and won’t be beaten by the large water bowl we call toilet. It took at least four falls into my bath water before she stopped that ritual, so she has a few more toilet dives before she’ll give up that detail of the ritual.

I will have to remember to always flush from now on just in case. I can’t complain, water is one healthy and inexpensive kitty treat and her love of it is part of what makes her so interesting. After all, how many cats fall into a toilet when trying to get a to an open can of tuna?