Spare Change

Anna, our lovely Siberian that I last wrote about here, is apparently saving up for something special. Over the past few days, I have discovered that Anna has been hoarding spare change; I discovered this when I heard her clawing at the carpeting under my recliner while I was typing. Curious as to what she found so fascinating, I crawled behind the chair to sneak a peek just as she came out from under the chair carrying a quarter in her mouth. I followed her from the upstairs library down two floors to the basement, where she placed the coin in a quarter with, as it turned out, another 64¢ in change that she had apparently accumulated over an unknown period of time. During the next two days, I found three more treasure-troves of coins and watched Anna search out another 57¢ in change to add to her savings account. I finally discovered where much of the change was coming from: Anna has learned that there was more change to be had in the cushions of the living room sofa, and had pushed the cushion forward just enough to enable her to get to it.

What did she plan to buy? I have no idea. I thought we were meeting her financial needs pretty well without any need for additional feline investment. I also have no idea how she learned that there were coins to be had in the sofa, since we really haven't sat in the family room downstairs a single evening since Anna joined us back in November (we spend most of our evening time in the upstairs library, which has become our impromptu family room/media room since we added the 61" DLP Samsung almost two years ago now). Perhaps she can smell the coins... I dunno. At any rate, I have tried to track down any remaining change and put it out of her reach, since I'm now worried that she'll swallow the coins and do some damage to herself.

I've never heard of another cat that saved coins; if anyone has any more information on this rather distinctive character trait, please clue me in.