Cats and Their Secret Places
Woman in the Middle | May 27, 2015My friend Jeanette posted on Facebook yesterday that her cat Suzie was missing. Suzie is an indoor cat and after Jeanette and her daughter searched their small house they had to conclude that Suzie had escaped outside. They were so worried, Jeanette’s daughter was crying, and it was all a big concern. Then, in the afternoon, Jeanette’s daughter caught Suzie “wandering out of the sitting room with a look of nonchalance on her face” as Jeanette later posted on Facebook. ”I think this cat must teleport,” she concluded. The funny thing is, Jeanette was getting new carpet yesterday and the sitting room had been cleared of everything – it was an empty room! Who knows where Suzie had been all that time while her frantic family feared the worst. By the way, Jeanette lives in the UK, which is why she has a sitting room and not a living room!
Jeanette’s story reminded me of our cat Cheeks and the time he had us frantic because of his hiding. Cheeks was Blackie’s bother. They were both from the same litter born to a stray cat in our front planter. Cheeks was always the more skittish of the two and he always knew when we were getting ready to take him to the vet.
One spring break we planned a week’s vacation to Hawaii and made arrangements to board Cheeks, Blackie, and Honey with our vet. When it came time to take the animals down to the vet Cheeks was nowhere to be found. We knew he was in the house, or at least we thought he was, but he had hidden and we couldn’t find him.
Since he was last seen in the computer room, we tore that room apart. We moved furniture, we crawled around on our hands and knees with a flashlight, we did everything we could think of to find him, with no luck. We finally had to give in and take Honey and Blackie to the vet. A friend offered to come by while we were gone to put out fresh food and water for Cheeks. We were resigned to leaving without knowing where the cat was.
Eldest Daughter was a freshman in high school and had a “boyfriend.” Is someone your boyfriend when neither of you drive, you never go on dates, and you only see each other at school? That is a question we shall leave for another day. But Eldest felt a need to send this “boyfriend” one more email before we left for the airport.
As Eldest sat at the computer desk, composing her good-bye message, she heard a rustling sound. The computer desk was a cheap particle board number that Hubby had since his college days. On one side, for storage, it had a rectangular open box hanging from the desk top. Inside this box we kept our computer paper. We had a lot of computer paper because I like colored paper, what can I say. To make it easy to see and access, I had placed the computer paper standing upright instead of laying flat. We had a lot of paper and there was only a very small V-shaped opening in the middle of the paper where one half of the paper leaned one way and one half of the paper leaned the other way.
When she heard the rustling, Eldest leaned down and looked into the paper storage area. There, behind the paper, she saw two glowing eyes. Cheeks had been found! The amazing thing was, if you looked at the paper, there was no evidence that it had ever been disturbed by Cheeks. There was no flattened paper, no wisp of cat hair, no paper pushed aside, nothing, even though this had been his secret hiding spot for quite a while. He had occasionally gone missing before, never to be found, until he was spotted hours later casually strolling out of the computer room. I have to agree with Jeanette – I think cats must teleport!
Now that he was spotted, I put Eldest on cat watch and Hubby and I grabbed the cat carrier, moved the paper, and grabbed Cheeks. We got him to the vet with just an hour to spare. I also had more appreciation for the “boyfriend” since it was that last email to him that helped us find our cat!
This is Cheeks, Blackie’s far sneakier brother. Cheeks passed away years ago from a congenital heart condition, but left us with many stories, as sneaky cats tend to do!
Awww! He’s a sweetie!
He was a soft and furry sweetie! But a challenge. Never could get medicine down him and we just put flea stuff on the other two and skipped him. Just too skittish. So weird because he and Blackie came from the same litter but very different cats in looks and personality.
He IS cute and fluffy!
For years I had two neutered male cats, one named Tiger, and one named Smudge. From living with them, I drew the conclusion that cats are indeed psychic, and apparently Cheeks was no exception!