Neighborhood Garden Cat
I’m not running a contest today because I want to talk about something that happened with one of our cats last night. For years, we have kept our cats inside and they have been purrfectly happy, except for one little girl we adopted from the animal shelter. She absolutely unequivocally refused to use a litter box. She would “go” outside, only—even in the rain! So Dinah became our only inside/outside kitty. Thankfully, she didn’t succumb to a coyote, dog, or owl attack, like many cats do. Nor was she run over by a car. She died of a brain tumor, of all things. RIP dear Dinah.
Fast forward to 2016. Late yesterday, we had mattresses delivered. We propped open a screen door for the hefty delivery guys, and I stood guard so no cats would inadvertently escape. Neither Sophie nor Lily would normally run for safety outside because their safe area is inside, but you never know when something might frighten them in that direction. Once the delivery men had left, we closed the door and settled back into our life.
However, when it came time to feed the cats, only one of them came to the kitchen. Lily 
was nowhere to be found. And she’s the one who never misses a meal. If nothing else brings her to the forefront, it is mealtime.
Well, we called and we searched and Lily did not even respond–this is so unlike her. We opened closets and cupboards that haven’t been opened in weeks, we looked high and we looked low—there was no Lily. Could she have slipped outside unnoticed? After searching outside, under cars, in the garage, neighbors’ yards, we were just sick. What could have happened to sweet Lily?
About twenty minutes had passed when we decided she’d been swallowed up by the large gob of plastic wrap the delivery men carried out and she was in the back of their truck. But before the phone call went through at Sears, we spotted Lily’s little face peering out from behind the TV set. She enjoyed her dinner. We did not. We were still too upset.
All is fine. She’s on my lap purring as I write this.
Do you have hidey cats? I thought we’d discovered all of our cats’ special hiding places—in the linen closet among the folded towels, up in the lining of an old mattress, in the closets (of course), under the beds and under the blankets. Where are your cats’ favorite hiding spots? One of my grandcats hid in the car engine once. Could have been disastrous. As it was, he only got a bit of a haircut. Another grandcat liked to explore the inside of the oven. Once, he burned his paws—yes, the oven was hot that day—and he immediately jumped into the sink and walked around in cool water.
I can’t tell you how happy we are to have Lily safe with us and I sure hope she never puts us through anything like that again.
One neighbor suggested Lily was trying to help me come up with a storyline for my next Klepto Cat Mystery. I can sure write that script from a deeply emotional place now.
