Alex's Quiet Place

These are the cabinets in our kitchen island. We store all sorts of things in there, such as various small kitchen appliances, our aluminum foil, cling wrap, etc., our cleaning rags, and sometimes one other important thing:

Our cat. Cats can be weird. They are known for sleeping in weird places. Alex doesn't have very many weird places that he sleeps (though sometimes he walks on ill-advised paths), but one place that he views as his own special place is the bottom shelf of this cabinet. It’s where we store our cleaning rags, but to him it’s a soft bed. I’m sure he first discovered it one day when we had the cabinet door open, and being the cat that he is, he was curious and climbed in to check it out. Since then, when he wants to go in, he’ll stand by the cabinet door, and look up at us and meow, and we’ll then let him in. He’ll sometimes stay in there for hours. He can’t let himself out, as the door has a childproof latch on it. So after awhile we’ll hear some muffled meows, and we’ll then let him out. Usually it’s been so long that we've forgotten he’s in there. We think he likes it because it’s a cool, dark place, and it also offers one other key benefit: there are no children in there. It’s a place of peace, solace, and solitude for him, which for a guy who sleeps a whole lot and who is not particularly fond of overactive kids, is a pretty valuable thing.