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Edited on Fri Aug-07-09 07:01 PM by TripleKatPad
I had a traumatic evening this week. My cat disappeared. By the end of the night, I was a raving lunatic. I was imagining burglars and/or a maniac tormenting me. And worse.
Star character of this story: Junebug, a 2-year-old now, but once a feral 4-week-old kitten who wandered into my life. She growls low in her throat at doorbells, mailmen, lawn mowers, garbage trucks, shadows, pretty much anything. Often such an occurrence is followed by a beeline for under the bed.
Prologue Part 1: Two weeks ago, I came home from work and found my TV on. This seemed very odd to me, as I am quite fastidious about my leave-for-work routine: lights off, lunch packed, cats fed, meds taken, hatches battened, etc. I had a momentary thought that a sicko came into my house and did nothing but turn on the TV (because nothing else was disturbed). I realized that was silly.
Prologue Part 2: Junebug had developed a nasty abscess on her neck, probably a result of a bout of rough-housing-gone-wrong with her older sister, Purrle. The wound was huge and...too gross to share here. I took her to the vet a week to the day after the TV incident. We came home with antibiotics (2 a day for two weeks!), but otherwise I was assured that June would be fine.
Fast-forward exactly one week from the vet visit (and 2 weeks since the TV thing) to the very bad night this week: I came home from work and prepared to work another couple hours as is usual for me. (I don't mind working from home when I can put on my ratty "air conditioned" shorts and tank.)
My other two cats, Purrle and Sushi, greeted me at the door like they always do. It was no surprise that June did not. She usually hangs back to make sure the person coming in is safe.
After an hour, I realized she had not come into the kitchen to get her supper so I took a tour around the house, using my best kitty-voice to coax her out. No Junebug. Ok, I thought, she's snoozing somewhere. I'll check again in 30 minutes.
So as not to drag this out more than I have, I will describe the following five hours this way: I began circuiting my 900-square-foot house, room-to-room, with ever-increasing levels of desperation. I looked in every nook and cranny. I looked in the obvious places and then crawled with a flashlight looking in the impossible places. I looked in the refrigerator, washer, dryer, behind the furnace, and in the kitchen cabinets that even I cannot reach. I pulled everything out from under the bed, searched all three closets a dozen times. She wasn't in the linen cubby for sure. Even though I knew she could not get outside, I wandered around outside my house and street in between the inside circuits, plaintively calling for her.
By 11pm I was a wreck. I had gone through several stages of grief and wild imaginings by this time. My baby is lost outside. My baby has had a relapse and is in a coma. The maniac came into my house and stole my baby just to torture me.
I poured myself a stiff drink and started to write about it (my therapy for distressful situations). I prepared an email to my boss telling him I would not be in the next morning. After I had finished several paragraphs, I glanced to my right...and there she was. I don't know from which room she came. She was just there. She was very scared and skittish, wouldn't let me touch her, but otherwise seemed unharmed.
Four days later, she's still skittish, but has been in view when I have come home from work.
I have been in the same house since 1993 and this is not the first time a cat "disappeared" on me or the first time I have searched top to bottom trying to find it. Eventually, he/she would come out. But it never was a five-hour ordeal like this.
What I really want to know after all of this is where in the world could she have been after I had convinced myself that I searched every possible place.
I'm hoping someone else here has a similar story to share, just so I won't feel too inadequate.
Edited to change foot-square to square-foot. Duh.
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