The Kate Trap
Today was a great day because I came up with the best Kate trap ever! In case you don’t know who Kate is, she’s our next door neighbour and the most important thing about Kate is that I do NOT like her. Ok, I’ve never actually met Kate. In fact Otter Keeper says she’s really nice and wants to meet me. Apparently she can’t understand why I always hide upstairs when she comes round for tea. Well, Otter Keeper may be taken in by her, but Teddy and I know best. Kate is bad news (we just don’t really know why).
You may or may not know this, but, when you have an awful neighbour like Kate, the best thing to do is come up with ways to trap them. Luckily I’m really good at making traps which comes in handy. Teddy and Giraffe would be useless without me.
Today I actually came up with one of my best traps yet. Otter Keeper was at work as usual and I was very busy practising bouncing on the sofa whilst listening to my little cassette player. But then all of a sudden, my brain told me I’d come up with the greatest idea for a Kate Trap EVER!!
I put off the sofa bouncing until later (I usually get in trouble for that when otter keeper gets home anyway) and hurried to my top secret otter laboratory, which is the little room under the stairs where the hoover lives.
As you can see from my plans, this is obviously a very clever design! True, I do need to borrow a lot of Otter Keeper’s things but I’m sure once I’ve got Kate trapped he will understand. Then he can probably have them back. Now all I need to do is refine a few details and then I can start building. By the way, this is a TOP SECRET trap, so don’t tell anyone. Especially Otter Keeper because he’ll probably be on Kate’s side.
Thank you for sharing the story Otter, I just got caught out in the rain – and then I got to come inside and sit and read your story while I warm up again 🙂
Good luck with your plan – it does look very complicated, but I think that should mean some part of it should work.
xxx
Nice design, Otter!!!
Remember: “it’s a dirty job but someone’s got to do it”
😛
This is just too cute! I’m sure Otter will successfully catch Kate with all these yummy looking cookies in this brilliantly designed trap:D
Dear Otter, this is the best trap I have seen yet and it would definitely catch me (I have a weakness for sweeties and have just had a frosted raisin pastry for breakfast). I’m not clear what the role of the Hoover is on your trap – but it makes it look quite official. I’m sure Kate’s days are limited. I particularly like the comfortable control chair from which you can manage the computer. Excellent!
Ah! So cute!!! Otter is a genius.
Very impressive indeed, Otter! You are so very clever. This Kate trap is sure to catch her!
I wish I had a clever otter like you of my own. Perhaps then I could be rid of the pesky Walrus who lives down the block!
oh otter! you cheered me up.
I am glad i am not kate. eventhough i would fall for it.
Otter looks kinda piss-off mate! Great work as always.
Woooow ! Dottie already said it : you’re a genius. You made so many attempts to realise traps for Kate that I didn’t expect you would once come to the very end. For me the number 42 is the ultimate trap. It’s so sophisticated with high tech that you can’t but succeed. I’m sure Kate can’t even imagine how skilled you’re now and, if I would be her, I would be really scared because you created an authentic war engine. I don’t know where you found your inspiration but, as a French otter, I’m a great fan of Asterix and your trap seems to me like a modern Roman catapult or an ancestor of a tank.
You’re right to be cautious and aware that some details have to be refined. I’m puzzled indeed by some technical and strategical questions and, in those, you must know, I’m very good : I always win when I play with keeper Roman invasions on her laptop. I love to be at the head of my troops and make otter-settlements all over France. But let’s come back to you and our objective “Kate”. How will you manage to hide your engine and to lead Kate to your trap ?
At first you need to equip with field glasses and an infra-red webcam to know what’s going on in her flat and her garden to be ready at any time to catch her. For a strategy it’s very important to know in advance what ennemy will do next. The only drawback of your trap, you have to compensate by strategy, is in fact -how could I say- its lack of discretion. You can’t avoid to collect lots of leaves and grass for an outdoor use of your trap which seems to me the most appropriate because it would be extremly difficult to get it into Kate’s flat although it may exist a little chance when she opens the door to the garden so that you can enter and hide behind curtains or in corner. Don’t forget to throw away leaves and grass before because they would produce the opposite effect in a room : stratgy is an art and you must be prepared to adapt it to circumstances at any time.
My second question is of practical nature : Do you think the basket is big enough for Kate ? Wouldn’t it be better to reinforce it with a fishing net or a moskito veiling, wouldn’t it ?
And last but not least: I have three major doubts which will perhaps lead you to modify some elements of your trap :
– Are you sure Kate likes cookies ? She never ate one of them you put in your former traps. So, perhaps would she be more attracted by something else which could excite her curiosity ? Why not otter feed ? You must try to find it out !!! Why don’t you invite her to have tea with you (Kate isn’t worth having even a dip into precious coffee ! I’m sure you agree with me) while keeper is away and get her when she rings at the door ? That would made lots of questions unessential !
– How self-controlled are you ? Are you sure indeed, if you spend so much time to track Kate that you would’nt get tired and hungry and, at the very end, feel attracted by your own trap so that you’ll be the trapped trapper ?
– But I had the greatest objection about integrating hoover in the trap. I’m really impressed you imagine yourself mastering hoover but, even with the best software, it seems quite impossible to me. Hoovers are so noisy and powerfull and they have such an appetite that they swallow almost everything they find on their way. I would never trust them, especially since I discovered during my last hollydays with keeper that they are legions in hotels where they hide in dingy spare rooms where they escape from evey morning howling till they found the last sleeper they could torture. Generally they are accoupled to young women keeper told me they’re called room-mates but I’m sure they’re actually named Kate and belong to the family of your Kate. Hoovers can’t be but dangerous traitors. Have a look at the tail of yours and tell me whether it’s connected by a plug with walls next to Kate’s. I’m sure, I’m right. You must find something to replace hoover. It’s far too risky to rely on hoovers for so tricky undertakings like a trap for Kate whom I’m sure she has sisters and cousins and I don’t know what else all over the world. We must beware of a conspiration keepers can’t prevent us from.
That’s the reason why, according to me, you need your trap to be patented (of course, without hoover. I insist !!!) so that you can build it in series. There’s in inventors’ fair once a year in Paris where you find everything you can’t do without like self-cleaning mustard glasses. There is also a price for the most clever invention and I’m sure you’ll get it when I ask my keeper to submit your trap to the jury.
I think indeed your keeper wouldn’t be angry if you’d show him your sketch. I’m even almost sure he’d lend you all you need, so ambitious and well thought your project is. Although he might disagree with your aim, he can’t be indifferent to your own authentic art. He’d congratulate you for that masterpiece thanks to which he’d get rid of all that rubbish he just keeps because he’s accustomed to see it around him. Perhaps he’d help you to sell it and you’d have enough money to send Kate on a journey in the land where hoovers come from and you won’t need your recycling machine anymore : all would automatically used for traps handmade in UK by Otter TM. I’d be very pleased to be your agent on continental Europe.
I was so enthusiastic that I couldn’t hide your plan from my keeper and she promised me not to tell our secret. As she saw your sketch, she laughed and went to bookshelves to fetch an art book about someone called Leonardo. I was astonished by the ressemblance between his drawings and even your former sketches and keeper said you must be his reincarnation as an otter because he was a genius like you who invented lots of strange machines for strange uses and was at the same time a famous painter who painted a smiling woman keeper promised to show me at our National Gallery. Keeper said his name wasn’t Kate but Mona Lisa because all women ar not called Kate. I can’t wait but I’m more excited yet by the idea you could make my portrait as Mona Otter or Louloute Lisa smiling with all my teeth so that we would enter together the history of art. It would be great !!!
Sorry for that very long comment : keeper says that sometimes I exaggerate and am quite pedant. I don’t really understand what she means (she says I don’t want to…) but I can imagine that I’m sometimes a little boring because keeper sometimes sleeps before I could end what I wanted to tell her when she’s in bed and I have to tickle her with my whiskers to wake her up again and generally she gets upset and hides under her pillow. So don’t be upset : I’ll stop here with highest admiration and lots of love
Hi Louloute, firstly thankyou so much for the trap encouragment, It is a very tiring job as i’m sure you understand and it’s nice to have support ( the support an otter deserves from their otter keeper really – but we won’t go into that, he’s still being very difficult with this whole Kate business)
I was also very pleased that you alerted me to the potential devestating consequences of using the hoover in my trap. In my haste to get to production I had forgotten about it’s terrible powers, and although ( being a highly skilled otter technician) i think I could probably overcome the hoover if things got difficult – I agree it is probably best to phase this element out of my trap.
I loved the idea of camouflaging with leaves for a garden attack though. You would make a very otter good war advisor/battle technician. We need more otters like yourself to fight in the on-going kate battle. Especially with your discovery of all these extra kates armed with hoovers.
(this is a very scary development and we must I have made some extra notes in my plans to take this into account – we will need to discuss this in greater depth later)
France sounds like a dangerous place for an otter, be careful. Explain to your keeper that you will be in need of some extra care and attention whilst out and about over the coming months.
Sometimes when i feel a bit scared of kate I like to wear my bright Red bow when we go out, this way keeper knows to look after me extra specially more than usual. plus I do quite like my red bow anyway…
in reply to your concern about kate liking cakes. well I can’t be sure but I saw an advert on tv the other day – there was an old lady eating biscuits, I went and made a few notes and did a few otter calculations in my top secret otter notebook and have concluded that kate ( being an old woman) must like biscuits. I can’t really explain my workings out (i find it quite hard to read what I write sometimes)
your a very lucky otter that you get to play on your otter keeepers computer so much, I usually have to peer over his shoulder while he plays games, but sometimes i can have some say in the direction of the game by prodding him or generally climbing all over him at the right times ( this does apparantly make him loose the games sometimes- but it serves him right for not getting more otter type games that i can play)
he got annoyed with me the other day so i went to make some more plans (but not about kate) he was explaining cinema surround sound to me ( we had been to the cinema and i was fascinated how the sounds came from all directions)
I said we should get it for our tv , but he said it would be too noisy.
…so i’m going to make some otter headphones with cinema surround by using two pairs.
initial prototypes haven’t worked, otter keeper says this is because i don’t have enough ears for the plan to possibly work
(but this is exactly the type of naievity he displays when we talk about kate)
true I have no way to get round this part yet but i don’t think it will be a huge problem.
At the moment i am concentrating on getting the second pair of headphones to sit on my forhead and back of my head without falling off
– this is the real problem with otter cinema surrond sound
Me and otter keeper hope you and your keeper had a wonderful time on your holiday ( apart from the hoovers of course ). Otter keeper says your messages are just the best thing ever and they really make him laugh. The way you write is simply brilliant and very inspirational !!!
me and otter keeper are writing a book about me now ( which i think he mentioned to you already) but he says your messages always give him really good ideas for our book !
lots and lots of love
otter ( and otter keeper )
Peter made indeed a very nice comment about your site ! You’ll have more and more fans now. It’s a great news. Congratulations !
Louloute
Hello Otter;
I think that is an excellent trap for Kate – I can see you must have worked very hard on the plan. Was Teddy much help? I hope it is a success, and you trap that pesky Kate once and for all! If you ever need help, I would be glad to help Otter and Teddy build an exceptional Kate Trap. Take care, Otter. Try and be careful – I so enjoy your stories every day – you always make me smile and feel happy.