Dead Cat Anyone?

Last summer, those halcyon days I long for every morning this December, a gray cat took up housekeeping under the rose bushes next to my driveway.  Every day when I came home, he or she would scamper out from under the bushes and run into the back yard along the side of the garage.

I figured it was a homeless cat. Mainly because it never seemed to go home. It was always under the bushes when I came home at night. Still, I wasn't entirely sure.

I had no plans to adopt it. I don't want any more pets. I'll visit yours instead. 

So I just let the kitty do its thing.  It wasn't bothering me.

It's been months since it started hanging out. The day after our snowstorm here it was really getting cold.  After getting home from doing errands, I walked back out to my car and heard the most pathetic meow.  All of a sudden the kitty came out from under my car where it must have gone to keep warm.

It ran toward the garage and ducked inside. How'd it do that? One of the small square wood panels had fallen out of the garage door. Rats, I knew I should have replaced the whole door last summer, but I didn't. 

The kitty was inside the garage now meowing rather loudly. Help me. Help me. This was the first time I'd ever heard it make a sound.  Hmmm, I thought.  Maybe this kitty doesn't have a home.  Maybe it's starving and freezing.  And I'm the only person who can save it.  Oh great.  Like I have time for this. 

So I called the animal control people who, of course, only work from seven to three on weekdays. By now it was Saturday.  I left a message to call me when theygot in on Monday.

To make a long story short, I put some food inside the garage, along with water and a box with a warm rug and a blanket in it.  No way I was going to try to catch that cat, bring it into my house and discover it had fleas, rabies, and who knows what else.

The next day there was no more meowing. Today the animal control lady came by with a trap when I was gone.  She was going to check it every half hour.

Shortly after she arrived, a woman who lives two doors down came over and asked the animal control woman why she was there. To get a stray cat. What color is the cat? Gray. Ohh, that's the cat that the neighbors have been looking for.

Apparently the people who live right next door to me own this cat. They only let him out at night.  Until last summer he used to spend time under the deck by the dryer vent of the lady who lives two doors down. She moved the vent. So he moved his operations to my rose bushes.

Meanwhile, I had no idea my neighbors had a gray cat, since he wasn't out during the day, only at night. And they never talked about him. Weird.

Right after the storm last week they went to DisneyWorld. I didn't know this. Another neighbor told me. But, even with the bad weather, they left their cat outside. Okay, they asked the neighbor lady to keep an eye out and bring him in. But sheesh.

They never said anything to me. Did they think he wouldn't go in my yard? Did they forbid their cat from stepping foot on my property? In fact, what were they thinking?

This is the same neighbor that built a tall fence between my property and their property about two minutes after moving in. Without telling me in advance, like most neighbors would. Luckily I was home that day. When I saw the fence guy digging a post hole almost two feet onto my property I was able to say "What the f**k are you doing?" before the whole thing went up and had to be taken down.

The husband seems like a nice guy. You can have his wife. They do have two cute little girls. Now their cat may be frozen dead somewhere in my garage.

Merry Christmas.