Sunday, May 15, 2016

That Time The Cat Ran Away


We've had a big week. New furniture, new plans, new outlooks, oh yeah, and a missing cat. We have two cats who are coming up on their 10th birthday. They're our first babies and are always good for a soft cuddle. They've been known to curl up with me while I read a book, sleep in between my legs at night, drink the water straight from my cup, and lay across my keyboard to get me to go to bed at night.

Lately, one of our cats has been fighting to get outdoors. He's never been an outdoor cat and hasn't shown much interest in it before this spring. His behavior was completely out of the ordinary. It was of no surprise that one night he ran out the door (as I was taking the trash outside) and didn't come back home. Actually he sat outside and meowed every twenty minutes or so and then ran away when we went to let him back in. Fun, kitty mom stuff.

Anyways, when he never came back home I had prepared myself. "He probably ran off to die somewhere. It's life." I was actually more relieved that I wasn't dealing with a dying cat. But we didn't give up right away. We took a walk the next evening, calling for him, asking neighbors if they had seen him. The next day, it rained. The cat hates the rain. If he really wasn't lost or dead he would have been back. This convinced me even more that he had died.

The kids were actually pretty good about. They asked why he ran off, what could have happened to him, and then shrugged their little shoulders and said "ok." I was more broken up about it than they were. Cut to 48 hours MIA. The kids were in bed, Hubs and I were talking about how we started dating, moved in together, and got the cats all within a year. Then we heard the meowing at the front door. We opened the door and there was the prodigal cat, who came waltzing into the house and curled up in his favorite spot. I was happy he was home and ticked off at him all at the same time.

The next morning we pointed out that the cat came home and I went on to tell the kids how happy we were that the cat came back. Our conversation went something like this:

Kid 2: "I knew he'd come back. We didn't need to worry."

Me: "Of course I had to worry. I'm his human mom."

Kid 1: "It's good practice for you mom for when I'm in high school and don't come home for a few days."

Kid 2: "Oh yeah, me too."

I'm really glad to know that the cat running away gave the kids the idea that it's okay to be away from home for "a few days" without telling me where they were going.