Never a dull moment....
May. 7th, 2002 02:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyspriteWhenever I come home, I'm always greeted by two singing, dancing, ankle-twining cats. This is a constant. No matter what time, no matter how long I've been gone, both of my cats are at the front door when I come home, waiting to greet me with affection and demands of belly-rubs.
So tonight, when I wandered home from the grocery just after midnight after having been gone all day, and only my grey kitty greeted me, I knew something was wrong. He was sitting at the door, mewing and staring up expectantly like always, but my little freaky orange cat wasn't there next to him.
'Not to worry,' thought I. 'He's probably sound asleep on my bed; it's late.' So I put down my bags and, calling his name, hurried into my room.
No Tristan on the bed. Or under the bed, or on the chair, or behind the lace curtain where he likes to hide and ambush the other cat.
I checked the stairwell to see if he had escaped while I was bringing the groceries in, but he wasn't there. And all of my doors were closed, so he couldn't have escaped while I was out. I thought about the possibility of his having escaped downstairs into my landlord's apartment, but the one time that happened, he was returned immediately along with a note detailing his adventures.
I promised myself I wouldn't panic, and immediately failed to keep the promise. He didn't answer any of my calls, and I began imagining him licking up Drano and crawling into the walls to die. Visions of never again being woken up at 5am by a sandpaper tongue on my nose ran through my head, and for some masochistic reason upset me horribly.
I searched in every reasonable place I could think of - behind the sofa, under the bed, in the closet and bathtub; and some unreasonable ones - the refrigerator, the back stairwell, the top shelf of the pantry. I called my boyriend, unsure of exactly what I expected him to do but confident in the knowledge that when one panics, calling one's boyfriend is an appropriate and world-saving thing to do. I cried in a terrible, tearless keening kind of cry that was more fear and disbelief than sorrow.
This was ludicrous. Cats do not just vanish. He had to be somewhere; he was nowhere. Half an hour of searching and I was about to give up. I had looked everywhere twice, reasonable or not. I looked under my dresser for the third time.... and remembered the broken drawer.
The bottom drawer of my dresser has a broken back - it kind of hangs, tilted, and stuff can sort of fall out. You never know... so I started rummaging through drawers. Three drawers, a missing-and-rediscovered paperback, and a Poke-ball later, and no cat. I knew I wouldn't find him, but I opened the bottom drawer anyway. And an orange head peeked out, as if to say, 'Oh, good evening. Are you home already?' and I almost fell over, breathing in huge relieved gasps and letting out shaky, tearful sobs.
I don't quite know whether to shower the poor baby with kisses and hugs, or to shake his scrawny body until his teeth rattle. Life is an adventure.
So tonight, when I wandered home from the grocery just after midnight after having been gone all day, and only my grey kitty greeted me, I knew something was wrong. He was sitting at the door, mewing and staring up expectantly like always, but my little freaky orange cat wasn't there next to him.
'Not to worry,' thought I. 'He's probably sound asleep on my bed; it's late.' So I put down my bags and, calling his name, hurried into my room.
No Tristan on the bed. Or under the bed, or on the chair, or behind the lace curtain where he likes to hide and ambush the other cat.
I checked the stairwell to see if he had escaped while I was bringing the groceries in, but he wasn't there. And all of my doors were closed, so he couldn't have escaped while I was out. I thought about the possibility of his having escaped downstairs into my landlord's apartment, but the one time that happened, he was returned immediately along with a note detailing his adventures.
I promised myself I wouldn't panic, and immediately failed to keep the promise. He didn't answer any of my calls, and I began imagining him licking up Drano and crawling into the walls to die. Visions of never again being woken up at 5am by a sandpaper tongue on my nose ran through my head, and for some masochistic reason upset me horribly.
I searched in every reasonable place I could think of - behind the sofa, under the bed, in the closet and bathtub; and some unreasonable ones - the refrigerator, the back stairwell, the top shelf of the pantry. I called my boyriend, unsure of exactly what I expected him to do but confident in the knowledge that when one panics, calling one's boyfriend is an appropriate and world-saving thing to do. I cried in a terrible, tearless keening kind of cry that was more fear and disbelief than sorrow.
This was ludicrous. Cats do not just vanish. He had to be somewhere; he was nowhere. Half an hour of searching and I was about to give up. I had looked everywhere twice, reasonable or not. I looked under my dresser for the third time.... and remembered the broken drawer.
The bottom drawer of my dresser has a broken back - it kind of hangs, tilted, and stuff can sort of fall out. You never know... so I started rummaging through drawers. Three drawers, a missing-and-rediscovered paperback, and a Poke-ball later, and no cat. I knew I wouldn't find him, but I opened the bottom drawer anyway. And an orange head peeked out, as if to say, 'Oh, good evening. Are you home already?' and I almost fell over, breathing in huge relieved gasps and letting out shaky, tearful sobs.
I don't quite know whether to shower the poor baby with kisses and hugs, or to shake his scrawny body until his teeth rattle. Life is an adventure.
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no subject
Date: 2002-05-07 03:32 am (UTC)A cat is worth every emotion that is expended on them, even when those emotions can include stress.
Be happy !
no subject
Date: 2002-05-07 07:45 am (UTC)We have been through several instances of 'losing' our little Fratzi in the house. We now have a checklist of rooms/spaces to examine before panic may commence.
Glad you found your wee one in good health.
no subject
Date: 2002-05-07 02:15 pm (UTC)Cats do this. I think they're intentionally messing with our minds, though I can't prove it. :)
When Umbra doesn't want to be found, she won't be found - and this apartment isn't that large, and I know all the largeish-cat-sized hiding places in it. Maybe she teleports into an alternate reality until she thinks it's time for me to stop worrying... *wry expression*
--glinda, fellow cat-slave