Simon's adventure

Kind of a wacky story, but since our cats are part of our family, I figure they deserve some real estate on the blog too...

Our one cat (the one that is fat and loveable and as big as a racoon) loves going outside. Except he's an indoor cat. Not declawed or anything, but has been living indoors for 10 years, and I highly doubt any of his survival skills have lasted from when he was a garbage-eating street cat (before he was a year old and we adopted him). In a nutshell, while we let him roam the backyard fairly freely, we keep the gate closed and make sure he's inside when we go to bed.

Except he likes to sneak out. Behind you. When you open the front door and are distracted by a screaming toddler that wants to be 'SIDE!!!!!! with Daddy. (I think I posted about her obsession with outside just a few days ago.)

So last night, around 11:30pm, I was packing up and getting ready to go to bed. When I realized I hadn't seen Simon in forever. Like, can't remember when I saw him last. 

I searched the house.  No cat.

I searched the backyard. No cat.

I went upstairs and woke up the Hubby, because, seriously? I'm not sure I want to be wandering the streets in my pjs at midnight without anyone knowing where I am, regardless of how safe our little boondock village is. (And honestly, no damn way is he getting away with sleeping through this while I am up to all hours, right?)

So now we're both walking up and down our street. In our pj's. Softly calling for Simon (because you don't exactly want to be shouting at midnight, right?).

Finally, I hear a muffled meow.

I track it down to our neighbour's backyard. And after a bit of flashlight scoping (where I'm sure the neighbour is going to come out and see what the hell is going on), we determine that Simon is not in fact, in any of the bushes in or around the garage that the meow'ing is coming from. In fact, the cat is in the garage (which is in the backyard - boondock house-design that I'm not a fan of personally).

So great. Our cat is in our neighbour's closed garage. And it's now 12:30am.

"F-him. He's the one that got himself into the mess", offers Hubby.

And at the risk of being judged here, by any animal lovers, yeah, I kind of agreed. Although our fault for not noticing our cat was outside, he's a bit of a dumbass to find himself locked in a neighbour's garage. And no way in hell am I knocking on anyone's door at that time of night. Especially since this is the neighbour with the nice lady and weirdo husband. (Doesn't everyone have a weirdo neighbour?). 

It was a can of worms I wasn't willing to open.

And I see the lady walking her children to school every morning. So I figure yeah, I'll just get him in the morning and teach him a lesson with having to stay in a cold garage overnight.

So that's what we did.  And the next morning, when I went outside to wait for the lady, around the same time that I run into her every OTHER day of the week, I see her car gone. She left early - in her car. Not a good sign.

Fast-forward 3 hours later. It's 10am. Still no sign of her. So I risk the weirdo husband and go and knock on the door. No answer.

At this point, I can conservatively estimate that Simon has been outside for 14 hours. And as annoyed as I am, even I can't start to worry, a bit...

So I do what any other respectful neighbour would do. I look around the garage to see if there's anyway to break in and get my cat.

Wow. That sentence sounds awful. But yeah, I guess that's what I did...

Anti-climatic ending? The side door to the garage was unlocked. Something I didn't even think to try last night.

I went in to the garage, found Simon sleeping on the lawnmower under a tarp (what? why? how is that comfortable??) and dragged his ass out of there.

He's dusty and hungry. But he's home.

Stupid cat.

xxoo.S