Some More of God’s Greatest Mistakes

Wow, so my missing cat story had quite a dramatic ending.  Also a happy one, so as not to keep you in too much suspense.

What happened is that I was driving home from having tea with a friend today and when I turned up my street I saw a squashed-looking mass of orange (color of my cat?  orange).  It’s a bad corner and I couldn’t stop or turn back easily to look closer, so I went on home and by the time I’d turned into my driveway I was 100% sure that there was no other explanation than that Rusty had been hit by a car on the road near my house sometime after he’d got lost.  I believed this so completely that before turning around to go and look I took the precaution of going into my house to get gloves and a cardboard box so that I could get his body and bring it back to bury it.

So, I’m pretty upset as you can no doubt imagine.  I get the box and gloves from the garage and as I do I notice a bit of animal poo at the very edge of the garage.  I wonder briefly about it, whether it was the dog’s, who has been known to get locked in the garage by accident, or if somehow the cat might have been responsible but remember, in my mind the body of the cat is definitely waiting down the road and I’m distracted by the thought of retrieving his car-squashed remains in another minute or so.

I drive back, park a little ways away, and venture on to the road with rubber gloves and box in hand, only to find to my relief that there is a roughly animal-sized mound of twigs and dried pine needles that could easily look like a dead animal from the road, but is actually nothing of the kind.

Of course, the fact that Rusty isn’t asphalt jerky doesn’t mean he’s safe or found or even still alive, just that I don’t have to scrape him off the pavement.  Even so, on the drive back a very faint hope starts to stir inside of me.  That poo, that lovely fresh (possibly) cat scat that I saw on the way out of my garage.  Is it possible that last night, when I opened the garage to go out into the dark to try and find my kitty that he somehow ran into the garage while I was out calling his name and foolishly holding a dish of cat food out to the darkness?  Is it possible that once he did this he did not make me aware of his presence when I shut the garage door last night, thus locking him safely in the house over night instead of outside with the foxes and coyotes?

I get home, go inside, put away my bottles of diet coke, pat the dog, and go downstairs where the door between the house and the garage is.  I open the door and in streaks Rusty, very much alive, albeit hungry after missing both last nights dinner and this morning’s breakfast.

I’m still not completely sure how or when he got inside without my noticing, but I’m certainly not going to argue with the outcome.  God, I officially apologize for all the things I’ve said about cats in general and this one in particular.  Thanks for not squooshing him, I really appreciate.  I owe you one, big guy in the sky.