The World According to Bob

I looked high and low, a process that didn’t take too long given the smallness of my flat. But there was no sign of him in my bedroom or in the kitchen or bathroom. I was beginning to genuinely worry about his welfare when it suddenly struck me that I’d put a box containing some hand-me-down clothes I’d been given by a charity worker in the airing cupboard. Sure enough, I opened the cupboard to see a distinctive ginger shape submerged in the middle of the box.

He’d done the same thing again not long afterwards, with almost disastrous consequences.

Belle had come around to help me tidy the place up a bit. It wasn’t the most organised and orderly of homes, at the best of times. It didn’t help that, for years I had been a bit of a magpie. I don’t know whether I subconsciously harboured dreams of opening a junk shop or whether I was just fascinated by old stuff, but somehow I’d collected all sorts of bits and bobs, everything from old books and maps, to broken radios and toasters.

Belle had persuaded me to chuck out some of this old tat and we’d organised a few cardboard boxes full of them. We were going to throw some in the rubbish but take others to charity shops or the local recycling place. Belle was taking one box down to the rubbish area outside the flats and was waiting for the lift to arrive when she felt her box jiggling around. It freaked her out a bit and I heard her scream from inside my flat. By the time I opened the door to see what the trouble was she’d dropped the box to the floor and discovered Bob inside. He was extricating himself from a collection of old books and magazines where he’d curled up for a nap.

Soon after that I’d actually made him a bed out of a cardboard box. I’d figured that if he slept in one he might be less obsessed with them at other times. I’d taken one side off a box then lined it with a little blanket. He was as snug as a bug in there. He loved it.

It didn’t entirely get rid of his obsession, however. He remained deeply interested in the rubbish bin in the kitchen. Whenever I put something into the bin he would get up on his hind legs and stick his nose in. If I ever challenged him he would throw me a look as if to say ‘hey, what are you throwing in there? I haven’t decided if I want to play with that or not.’ For a while, I started jokingly calling him the garbage inspector. It wasn’t always a laughing matter, however.

I was just emerging from the bath one morning when I heard weird noises coming from the kitchen. I could make out a thin, metallic, scraping sound, as if something was being dragged around. It was accompanied by a kind of low moaning sound.

‘Bob, what are you up to now?’ I said, grabbing a towel to dry my hair as I went to investigate.

I couldn’t help giggling at the sight that greeted me.

Bob was standing in the middle of the kitchen floor with an empty tin of cat food wedged on the top of his head. The tin was sitting at a jaunty angle on his head right over his eyeline. He looked like a cross between the Black Knight from the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail and a Welsh guard outside Buckingham Palace with his bearskin hat hanging over his eyes.

It was obvious that he couldn’t see much because he was walking backwards across the kitchen floor, dragging the tin with him in an attempt to reverse himself out of it. He was being very deliberate, padding backwards one careful step at a time, occasionally wiggling the tin or raising it a little before giving it a tap against the floor in the hope the impact would dislodge it. His plan wasn’t working. It was comical to watch.

It didn’t take Hercule Poirot or Columbo to work out what had happened. In the corner of the room I could see the black bin liner containing the rubbish I was going to put in the wheelie bins downstairs this morning. I normally emptied the bin and put the sack out at night, specifically to stop Bob playing with it. But for some reason today I’d forgotten and left it on the kitchen floor. Big mistake.

Bob had clearly taken advantage of my absence and ripped and chewed at the bottom of the bag so that he could try his luck rummaging in the waste. He’d drawn a blank on the cardboard front, but he had found the old tin. Unfortunately for him, in his enthusiasm to explore its contents, he’d got his head stuck in there. It was the kind of thing you saw on YouTube or video clip programmes like You’ve Been Framed all the time. He’d got himself in a terrible mess and was letting out this rather sad and pathetic little moaning sound. It wasn’t the first time he’d done something like this. One day I’d been sitting in the living room when I heard another odd sound coming from the kitchen, a kind of tapping sound. Pat… pat… pat followed by a faster pat, pat, pat, pat.