There’s a chair in our living room near the fireplace mantel. It’s a two-foot hop from chair to mantel, but Hilbert treats it like a jump over the Snake River. He gets up on the armrest. He gets his footing. He looks up. He looks down. He thinks about jumping but then backs off. He shifts his feet again. He looks. He starts to jump. He stops. Finally, he either gets down or else makes the mighty leap up to the mantel.
Is Hilbert a weakling? Not at all. As you can see below, one of his favorite new spots is at the very tippy top of our new closet. To get there, he makes a 4-foot leap onto the clothes hamper and then another 4-foot leap to the top. He does both without touching a thing on his way up. He does it smoothly and effortlessly. So what’s the deal with the fireplace mantel?