To see or not to see? That is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The stubbed toes and bruised shins of a midnight bathroom run
Or to turn on the light and blind myself,
And by such illumination avoid the furry black speedbump? To flip the switch;
Spare the cat; and by not stepping thereupon we dodge
The foot-ache and the thousand unnatural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis an eventuality
Devoutly to be wished. To flip the switch, to see,
To see: perchance not to stumble: ay, there's the feline;
For in that bleary-eyed darkness what cats may come
When we have shuffled off these velvet covers
Must give us pause on the way to the potty; there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would on purpose stomp and stamp upon the house pet,
The rotten animal, the fluffy boobytrap,
The fat fuzzball, the troublesome carpet-dweller,
The insolent black dictator and the stubby round tyrant,
That patient lurker of hallways and doorways
When she herself might her quiet way make
While bothering no one? Who then would I bear,
To grunt and sweat beneath her hefty, hairy load,
But that dread of something fanged beneath my feet,
The undiscovered predator from whose claws
No mousie escapes, puzzles the will
And makes us rather carry her around
Than step upon her for we otherwise know not where she lurks?
Thus night blindness does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native glow of the bathroom light
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought
And enterprises of liquid need and pressure
With this regard the toilet's seeker's path turns awry
And slippered feet lose the name of traction--Soft you now!
The fair moriarty6! Heavy Sleeper, in thy comfort
Be all my sins remembered.
* * * * *
[edit: to add nonsense to injury, i flipped the bathroom light on for a brief moment and then i promptly flipped it off again--just to orient myself. but when again i found myself in darkness, i was not alone. at the far end of the bathroom, a pair of glowing, yellow-green eyes stared me down, and i knew for a fact that the felonious feline was shut out on the other side of the door. besides, the glow was coming from human-head level, and the only thing at that height in the bathroom (my own head aside) was the duckie shelf. clearly, i had closed myself in the loo with something horrible.

"AUUUUGHH!" quoth i, and i tripped backwards to hit my head on the towel rack. i then scrambled to my feet, flung open the bathroom door, stepped on the cat, and ran into the living room ... before remembering that it only takes a few seconds for a pair of glow-in-the-dark devil duckies, high upon a shelf, to charge themselves to "evil glowing eye" luminosity.

i felt like an idiot.]

[edit, redux: some new spainycat pictures are up over on kittypix]