Just kidding.
Tuesday was Abe's 11th birthday. It coincided with the night of the second race of the Tuesday Night Crit series. Up until about Thursday of last week, I hadn't realized I wouldn't be going to the race.
Abe has been talking about his upcoming birthday for approximately the past 365 days (leap year).
Jill's car is now paid for. We made the last payment in May. Jill needs to get a new battery for her car. Monday she needed to use my car so she could take Abe and his friends to a movie to celebrate his birthday week.
So I rode my bike to work.
All of my bike gear is in a basement room. Our basement rooms have egress windows so they can qualify as bedrooms.
So Monday while I was getting ready to take my bike to work, I heard a cat mewing.
I found that surprising. We don't have any pets.
I looked over and saw Edward. He was asking if he could come in. If you don't know this about me, I have a lot of experience with night creatures asking to be let in. I know better.
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| Sorry Edward. The window opens from the other side. |
Edward is a cat who lives over on 60th and Parker. I didn't know that then. I went to the window and said, "No cat. You may not come in." But all he had to say for himself was "Meow."
In his defense, he said it a lot.
I'd say, "No you can't come in."
He'd say, "How about meow?"
"No"
"Meow?"
"No"
and so on.
I wondered if maybe Edward was unable to get out of the well. I thought maybe I should try to help him. I did not want to touch him, so I stuck a step ladder down there in case he wanted to get out and couldn't jump that high or something.
Edward understood right away. He immediately settled down under the first step of the ladder and went to sleep.
I thought he'd figure it out, so I left the ladder and went to work.
About an hour later Abe called to tell me about a black cat under a ladder in the window well. Abe's concern was that it was double bad luck.
When I got home, I looked in the well. The cat was there, but the ladder was gone. Kind of the opposite of what I was expecting.
Then I saw the ladder hanging in the garage.
It seemed weird to me that Jill would take the ladder and leave the cat. She's no cat person, but still ...
She said the cat jumped out on its own and went away.
"He's back," I explained.
So I then went over and asked him to get out of the well. He came out and sat on the porch with me for a spell. Then I went inside.
The next day, he was not on the porch or in the well.
Then came Abe's big party. While we were all sitting around on the porch, reminiscing about the day of the cat, it occurred to me to check the other window well. Yep. He was there. He had apparently been sitting in there all day.
I called him out and he joined the party. He was a big hit. He had a lot of fun at the party. Most of the people there decided he was a female. I don't know their criteria and I don't care. He was so excited by the people. He socialized with everybody. He thought it was his birthday party. Some people said he should be named "Cha-Cha-Cha." I personally liked Matt's suggestion of "Lawrence."
Matt also named Brigadier General George Barkington III.
Matt has a way with naming creatures. The cat hung out getting all kinds of attention until everyone left. Even though he wished the party could have gone all night, he graciously bid everyone a fond farewell as the evening came to an end.
"I like them," he said, "They're nice." But it sounded more like "Meow" when he said it.
It stormed pretty hard that night.
Wednesday morning, he was back in window well 'B,' soaking wet. I looked at him and he said simply 'Meow.'
Typical.
I didn't check on him after that until this afternoon (Thursday).
He was still in the window well, looking a little shaky so I thought enough is enough. I called the humane society to come and pick him up.
They said I had to have him contained before they could do that.
Containing him meant either putting him in the house (not happening), in a box (seems weird), or in a kennel.
I said "so do you need my address or something?" They told me that I needed to contain the cat and call back when that was done.
I said I was standing on his tail and could they please hurry because he didn't seem to like it.
I wasn't really standing on his tail and I didn't say that. Someday, we're going to have to have a little talk, you and I, about how some of the content of this blog is "make-believe."
So I went looking around for something to put the cat in, knowing it would have to be covered since I didn't have any boxes taller than the window well.
Rubbermaid seemed risky because I wasn't going to ruin its airtight properties by making "air holes" and I didn't know:
1) How long it would take for the Humane Society to get here, and
2) How they'd react to seeing a cat sealed in a plastic container.
Eventually, I borrowed a kennel.
I walked over to the neighbor's with the cat at my heels the whole way. I knocked on the door and their little dog came running and yapping to greet us. He saw Lawrence, AKA Edward, and went out of his mind. Jumping. Shouting stern, high pitched warnings and slamming his little head into the door. The cat just sat there, barely interested; looking bored. At that point I realized I liked the cat.
The neighbor handed me the kennel. When the cat saw it, his eyes went wide and he ran away from me back to the porch. It was the first time I'd seen him run.
It took some forceful nudging, but I got the cat into the kennel and called the humane society.
About 2 minutes later, Jolene called and said she had the phone number of some people who lost a similar cat a few days ago. They lived about 2 blocks away so we called them.
It was their cat. They knew because when they looked into the kennel and said "Edward, is that you?" he made no reaction at all. It was just "so Edward" to not respond to his name like that.
During Edwards stay with us, we did not feed him. We had no intention of it. We did not want to encourage him to stay. During the party though, he got plenty of snacks from our guests.
We did not put out milk or really do anything for him.
When he was leaving, the owner thanked us for "taking care of him."
I said, "All we did was not kill him."
That went over like a fart in church.
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