Last night the cat went missing. This is unusual. Veneta is a sociable kitty and usually can be found within a few hundred feet of the family. She generally comes when we call her. We know her habits and her ways, but last night she was nowhere to be found. We searched the house, and Veneta was well and truly missing. She was not on a dining room chair tucked beneath the table. She was neither on my desk nor under it. We could find her in none of the closets. We took the search outside.
She was not in the barn. She hadn’t gotten locked in a car or the truck. She was not in the granary or the tobacco shed. We put Molly on a leash, grabbed a flashlight and hiked down the lane to the hoop house. Veneta was not there. On the way back we checked all the outbuildings again, and while we surprised a small squeaking critter in the tobacco shed, Veneta was not in there stalking it.
We checked the road. No pathetic corpse, no flat cat, no tell tale sign of a kitty dragging herself off into the weeds to die. Naturally then our thoughts turned to coyotes. And owls. When we passed the windbreak we had heard a peculiar wheezing and chittering that we chalked up to the noise of some unpleasant night bird. I took the flashlight and circled the windbreak until I could shine a light on a spot perhaps twenty feet up in the trees where the wheezing seemed to center. No Veneta up there, and the bird, whatever kind of bird it was, wheezed away, undeterred by the strong beam of light sweeping the tree.
The outdoors was dark and huge. Indoors was more contained and re-searchable. We went back inside. Perhaps, we thought, she had climbed into Kristen’s van and been taken for a ride. We thought we’d call Kristen but then we discovered an open closet door. And there, cozy in a pile of sweaters on the closet shelf, we found Veneta snoozing. She had of course been far too comfortable to come when we’d called. We were so glad to find her that there was then no thought of reproach or remonstrance regarding the incomplete nature of the earlier part of the search, the part before we went outdoors, the part where we had assured each other that we had checked all the closets.
That came later, with this post.
[tags]did you check all the closets[/tags]
10 Comments
That happened with my previous cat, Samantha. She’d gotten into the linen closet and up on one of the top shelves, curled up on a pile of blankets. At some point after she’d gotten up there, someone had shut the closet door on her. However, she didn’t complain once, nor respond to our calls. When we opened the door and saw her, she was like, “oh hi, nice of you to drop by”.
Frank, no one can successfully contend with the feline agenda. Not even people who really do thoroughly check the closets. They’re furry little fascists, bless their hearts, and have wiles beyond the ken of mere humans.
This is a great story. I enjoyed reading it because, apart from it being really well written : ) – it has certainly happened to me. After I found the cat – the relief was so profound that I almost wept. And then immediately afterwards felt like I was such a fool. And then after that, I laughed and laughed.
Thanks for the memory.
And in the feral garden
walk the kitties unafraid
A bit of a spillover from Infinite Monkeys.
Life is messy doncha know…
Nice name. Good to hear it ended well.
Veneta, Oregon was named after Beth’s grandmother. The cat is named after her. And the wheel keeps turning…
Been there, done that. All panicky and teary and frantic. Then all furry and purring and warm. Nothing else on the planet quite like our cat-masters. Biggest problem is that they know it…
I think the cross-species thing is intriguing … you know, how a cat can cause humans beings to be as fretful as mother hens. Hee!
This is really a *great* story, Frank.
(And re: your note. Yes, definitely! Please contact me at the email used here.)
It is a story worth sharing more widely. Know what I mean?
My 18 year old kitty girl has taken to snoozing in the closet lately. I think it is cooler there. She was all curled up on a black leather bag in there this afternoon, sound asleep.
Napping is important when you get old, you know.