OneAndOneIs2

The role of animals in scientific research is well-known.

There was Pavlov, who proved that if you give a dog food after ringing a bell, eventually your dogfood bill will be so high that every time you hear a bell ring you'll get angry with the dog.

Then there was Schroedinger, who explained that if you put a cat in a box and explained to it that when you opened the box, there was a good chance that the cat would already have been dead for several minutes, there was an exactly fifty-fifty chance that opening the box would result in an enraged feline severing your hand.

But it's another scientist whose principle seems to apply to the situation I found this morning: Heisenberg. His Uncertainty Principle showed that you can know a particle's position, or its speed. But never both at once.

The problem is, last night when I went to bed, I knew the kittens weren't going anywhere. This seems to have resulted in some serious uncertainty as to their position.

Longtime readers of this blog may remember that when Tina moved into this house, I gave her a housewarming present: a 16lb ball of lead on the end of a long chain, with Tina's mortgage emblazoned upon it.

It's actually proved surprisingly useful on many occasions - you never know when you might need a large heavy weight. Most recently, we've been using it as a doorstop to keep kittens out of the kitchen: Aidy has figured out how to open this door, but thus far has been unable to move The Mortgage.

We know for a fact that The Mortgage was in front of the kitchen door last night, because both of us remember Tina asking me if I was finished in the kitchen before she dragged it in front of the door.

We know for a fact that the kittens were in the main room because when we headed for our bedrooms last night, they both made a determined effort to get up the stairs rather than be shut in.

So: They were both in the main room, all the doors in that room were shut, and the kitchen door had a 16lb lead weight in front of it. These are all certainties.

Fast forward ten hours, and I came downstairs for breakfast. Opened the door to the main room, and there's no sign of the kittens. I stop and look around. No sign of the kittens. I look at the kitchen door. It is closed, and The Mortgage is still in front of it.

They must be hiding, I think, and drag The Mortgage out of the way so I can open the kitchen door.

Inside the kitchen is a scene of devastation with bags on the floor and tubs on the oven, and two very innocent-looking kittens on the worksurfaces.

So, to recap: Last night,

• Kitchen door closed
• Immovable weight in front of kitchen door
• Kittens in main room

This morning, however...

• Kitchen door closed
• Immovable weight in front of kitchen door
• Kittens in kitchen

I'm prepared to believe that they might somehow have been able to move The Mortgage aside. And I know Aidy can open the kitchen door. And maybe she might have been able to pull the door closed behind her, or a draft could have closed it.

But then to have pulled the very large and heavy Mortgage *back* against the door? (And it was right up against the door, not the slightest amount of wiggle room)

I could even see how this could happen with ONE of the in the kitchen and the other outside.

But *both* of them on the OTHER side of the door with a large heavy weight up against it?

Seriously: How is this possible??