Facing My Phobia

I really, really dislike ladders. They scare me. I'm not sure why. I'm not fond of heights, but I'm not really scared of heights so I don't know why ladders scare me, but they do. I have never cleaned my gutters because of this phobia.

Anyway, I heard our cat making a horrible meowing noise yesterday morning and couldn't find her. As I pulled the car out of the driveway to drive to swimming lessons, I saw her on the roof. How in the world did that crazy cat get on the roof? She must have been in a tree near the house or something. I have no idea. Our roof is fairly high. (Our house is built six-feet up because of the crazy river across the street that floods every hundred years. That's why it has flooded twice since I have lived here. It seems like a hundred years.) I digress....as usual...back to the story...

Super Mom to the rescue! I got the ladder out and very shakily and slowly climbed up with my daughters encouraging me as I climbed. I suppose the cat really didn't want to be rescued because she ran from me. I had to beg and plead and coax her back to within arms length and then I grabbed her. She responded by jumping on my head and clawing my face. I'm glad nobody was around to take a picture of that...a cat on top of my head and me on top of the roof...it probably looked as ridiculous as it felt. Poor cat was terrified and I wasn't much better. Somehow we made it off the roof without any broken bones; just a lot of scratches. We were very late for swimming lessons.

Next time I'll call the fire department.