Some people say that cats are sneaky, evil, and cruel. True, and they have many other fine qualities as well.
~Missy Dizick
It had sounded so easy, and at first it was: cat-sitting for friends on vacation. Not housesitting… cat-sitting. With a nice home, neighborhood watch, police patrol, and the latest in alarm systems, my friends certainly didn’t need me to watch the house. I was there for one purpose only — to keep Tony company while his humans were away on vacation.
It was easy. The first three days, whenever Tony woke from a nap, he and I would play with his favorite toys, especially the “birdie” on the string swinging from a stick. Tony was a regular guy: regular in using his litter box, regular in eating and drinking, regular in sleeping and playing.
In fact, he was so regular and on schedule that I felt concern on the morning of day four, when his litter box was still as clean as I’d left it at bedtime, his fresh water and food were undisturbed, and his toys were untouched. He’d not only failed to show himself, he’d not even made a sound.
“Oh, no,” I worried aloud. “Something’s happened to him!”
I began my search with the usual “Here, Tony. Here kitty, kitty, kitty.”
Nothing.
He couldn’t get out, so he had to be in the house. But where?
I crawled on tops of cabinets and looked down behind. I lay on the floor under furniture and looked up. I pulled curtains aside and looked around.
Still nothing.
I’m usually calm, but I could feel my heart racing.
I walked through the house shaking the container of treats that usually brought Tony running.
Nothing.
I walked through the house with an open can of cat food — his favorite kind, salmon.
Nothing.
I walked through the house, jiggling the birdie on the string.
Nothing.
Then it hit me: Get on the Internet!
Grabbing my laptop, I typed in, “How to find a hiding cat?”
Presto! An answer.
But wait, hundreds of people before me had asked the same question, and hundreds more had answered. One brought a measure of solace by saying they’d had their cat three years and still couldn’t find her hiding place.
Every minute counted, but I read enough to see the top three answers were:
1. Rattle the jar of favorite treats.
2. Open a can of favorite food.
3. Shake a favorite toy.
All things I’d already done!
Hours passed, and I was nervous beyond belief. My blood pressure was rising, and I didn’t even have a blood-pressure problem.
By now, my hands were shaking, and my knees were weak.
In desperation, I prayed, “Lord, I’ve done all I know to do. These folks will die if they come home next week and something has happened to their beloved Tony. Please, help me find this stupid cat.”
Then it dawned on me: Cats like to be alone and prowl. I would pretend I had left!
After turning off the TV, I opened and shut the outside door, but quietly remained inside, hiding.
It wasn’t thirty seconds before I heard a “thunk” when Tony came out of hiding, jumping onto a metal filing cabinet before landing on the floor and prancing in smugly to his food, water and litter box! I declare he was grinning.
A few days later, when my friends came home and I related my adventure (without saying it had surely shortened my life), they said unconcerned, “Oh, he does that all the time. Guess we should have told you.”
~Kathryn J. Martin
