Don't Mess with the Cat

Yesterday was a big day.  Workmen were at work on a project in my apartment and I had to leave for the day.  That was Ok, but any living thing had to go with me.  Plants outside.  CD and DVDs were at risk.  Make up had to go in the fridge.  There were bugs lose in the building and the whole dang place was going to be heated to 140 degrees.

So, off Obi and I go.  Obi is a beautiful kitty, a 15-pound, pure-bred Ragdoll, which is a kind of Siamese with electric blue eyes. We had a great day at cousin Julie's house, except for this:  she is allergic to cats and Obster had to spend the day in the garage.  Julie and I watched the Saturday cooking shows on PBS, and then Davis Cup Tennis, which hosted the most stunning doubles match, won by the Serbians.  Americans were beyond brilliant, but there was this one guy. . .  We lost in the last possible second by the slimmest of margins, after 27 matches in the 5th set.  

Obs was in the garage and I'd go out to visit him about every 40 minutes and since Julie's garage is FULL of mysteries and wonders that was quite all right with the cat.  A little after lunch Obi got fed up with being in the garage.  It was a little cold.  He wouldn't eat.  He wouldn't pee.  And then the little bugger found a place to hide and wouldn't talk to us, wouldn't come when he was called, wouldn't come and lace through my feet, his usual mode of communication.  For seven solid hours.  

We didn't know where he was, whether he'd gotten out and wandered off (not an unknown activity in cats).  But we searched for the better part of two hours, went through every hidey hole in the garage, banged on the hood of the car, called him and called him and called him.  Not a peep.  Not a meow.  Not a purr, a whimper, a sign.  

I have a new/old metaphor for silence — as quiet as cats.

We were saved by an unlikely hero, the local eight-year-old kid and his side-kick, the closing-in-on-adulthood CT.  Obi was still in the garage, but he was in the back part of the shelving behind piles of garden hose.  Austin, the 8-year-old, wrestled him out.  CT got him in the house.   I'd about given up with finding him and thought I might have to go home without Obi.  I walked into the house after a peruse of the garden, and there they were: Obi, Austin, CT, and Julie.  They were wrestling him into his kitty carrier.  Obi was just putting up a nominal fight on general principles,  so it wasn't a serious argument, so in he went after only a few bites and clawings.

Obi gets home, gets out of his carrier, utterly unperturbed and unrepentant.  But I can tell he is happy to be out of the garage and happy to be home.  He chows down, the first food he's had all day.

I got me a new hero.