My Cat Collection

When I was in grade school I loved cats.  My room had pictures of cats all over the walls and I spent most of my allowance and birthday money on cat figurines.  I had spied them in Johnson Hills Department store uptown and was quite taken with these figurines.  My brothers and sisters always knew what to get me for Christmas.  So fierce was my cat passion that my parents eventually broke down and let me get a live one, but that's another story.
My Dad had boxed up the cat collection and mailed it too me about 5 years ago.  Unfortunately, for an intelligent guy his understanding of how boxes are handled by UPS is rather naive and they arrived with a few broken paws.  Since I didn't have anywhere to put them in our little house they have been living in the mailing box until Ted hauled it out of a corner the other day and suggested I "do something" with them. He later suggested that I could display them in the fireplace heatilaters. 

The fireplace now has a insert, so the old heatilater system built into the brickwork is nonfunctional. One day when I needed a break from the computer I got some cardboard, lined the bottom of the upper heatilater with cardboard so none of the cats would fall down the back ventilation slot, and set up some of the cats.

Since I still had some cats left I went over to the other side of the fireplace to do the same.  I didn't think I would bother with the cardboard liner, but I had forgotten just how many cats I had.  But no worries, I wasn't going to knock any of them over.  No sooner had I had that thought than oops, I knocked over a cat and it disappeared down the back of the heatilater. Oh no! I winced expecting a crash! It didn't happen.  Got down on my hands and knees, took the grate off the heatilater and looked in.  No smashed cat. Huh? Started feeling around and discovered there was no connection, there was insulation on the roof of the bottom opening.
Got out a mirror and flashlight, wedged myself into the corner between the fireplace and the wall, carefully removed the remaining cats,and with much craning about finally could see in the mirror that the cat was lying on some insulation at the bottom of the ventilation slot.  Got out the Norco grabber and tried to grab the cat by the neck, simultaneously holding the mirror, the flashlight, and the grabber.  Immediately dropped the grabber down the heatilater. Arggghhh. Luckily with more contortions was able to retrieve the grabber. 

Over the next few days, Ted and I came up with many plans to get the cat out of the fireplace.
I used my head lamp wrapped around my wrist so I could manuever both the mirror and the flashlight at the same time, but was not able to manipulate the grabber in that cramped space in mirror image view. 
Ted had the idea of using the shop vac to suck out the cat.  That didn't work either.  Finally we wrapped the web cam I got for Christmas in a plastic bag, loaded its software onto the lap top, and with me holding the laptop and Ted wedged in the corner, dropped the web cam down the hole.  Now Ted used the grabber, contorted to look at the laptop and tried to manipulate the grabber to get the cat.  Brought up a piece of wood and the clasp from a change purse ( I had visions of antique coins and striking it rich) and then Clink! Oh no! We had knocked the cat into some other space, the web cam showed the cat had dissappeared!!
Looked in the bottom heatilater again, no cat.  Felt around and around in the bottom heatilater and finally felt a passage to the back side, groped around and felt the cat! Hurray!!!!!!!!!!!! There was the cat, with narry a scratch on it.

Ta Dah!!!

The rest of the cat collection.  The wayward cat is on the left side.