Suzy Says

Speaking of cats…

Remember the white cat who made an uninvited appearance early one morning, simultaneously driving Audrey insane and cutting short my much-needed beauty sleep? I have finally solved the Mystery of the Cat in the Night*.

One night, Mark called me to ask if I had a white cat, because there was a large one treed outside in his house and making a large fuss about the predicament he found himself in. You’d think Mark would know that my dwindling supply of cats now only includes Clyde, who is jet black and rarely leaves the manor, and Audrey, who is stripy and whose hobby is terrorizing Mark’s dogs, but apparently not.

So I disclaimed ownership of the mysterious cat in the night, while being pretty sure it was the same one who had annoyed Audrey about a week before**.

The next morning, while I was drinking my coffee and perusing the local message boards, I came across a frantic message from someone who was missing a large white cat in my neighborhood. I emailed her and told her that as of the previous evening, the cat was up at a tree at my neighbor’s house.

She replied with relief, since it turned out that she was taking care of her son’s cat while he and his wife were on vacation and she was horrified that she had lost the cat. Being a small town, it also turned out that the cat’s owner was a long-time friend of my brother’s.

I alerted Mark, gave the cat sitting mother his address and directions, and went to work. I later learned that attempts to persuade the cat out of the tree were unsuccessful, and they had to call in the services of a semi-professional cat remover, who is well versed in dislodging disobliging felines from trees. He brought a ladder and a box, and apparently of all the cats he has relocated from their arboreal perches, this is the only one who didn’t pee on him during the process, so it was considered a win all the way around.

I am pleased to say that I haven’t seen the white cat again. Hopefully he is staying a little closer to home these days.

A YEAR AGO: Trying to accept my new lot in life. Still trying!

*If this isn’t a Nancy Drew title, it should be.

**A perusal of my blog shows that this same cat was annoying Audrey almost exactly a year ago. I hope this isn’t becoming an annual tradition.