my little escape artist

my cats are indoor only cats. while they may have free roam of most of our house, there are certain doors we keep closed unless one of us is in there namely the laundry room, basement, and attic. we are very careful to keep the girls out of these rooms in general although i do let them join me when i am spending time in attic with my shoes. most of the time, they are in the same room as us or sleeping in the bedroom, so its easy to notice if one of our girls is missing. twice in the last week, my eldest, belle, has managed to sneak past us and hide. tuesday, she spend most of the night in the laundry room after dan put his clothes in the dryer before going to bed. i woke up and not immediately seeing her went looking for her and was surprised to hear her meows coming from our laundry room. we figured this was a fluke since she's only gone missing once in the almost 3 years we have been living here. but then, last night she managed to pull a houdini again. i've been conducting my rock candy experiment in my basement(completely covered of course). i feel the need to check the progress of my rock candy at least once a day. unbeknownst to me, she slipped past me into the basement. maybe a half hour or so later, i started hearing noises coming from the basement. sure enough, she was waiting at the door to be let out. i have no idea what she had gotten into down there, but the top of her head was covered in dust and dirt. sadly for both of us, this meant we both got to endure one of our least favorite tasks. i got to give her a bath. she whines the whole time. its so funny as kitty my other cat will sit outside of the bathroom watching the whole time merely glad she isn't the one in the tub. i did take a pic of how pitiful she looked but only with my cell phone camera hence the poor quality.