The Kitty We Should Have Named 'Dastard'

Saturday night I went to bed excited to sleep in.  But alas, Sunday morning I was woken at 9am to the sound of my dogs barking.  Not just barking, but howling.  I looked over at Jordan and he was gone.  Curiosity piqued, I got out of bed and found Jordan in the dining room with his entire head stuck through the slats of the blinds.  Curiosity of course escalated as many questions filled my head, such as:  Why doesn't he just peek through the blinds, pull them up, peek around the side.  But these questions were not answered 'cause he said something even more peculiar than his methods of looking out the window.  "Kea is out there."  Kea is our cat, if you didn't know.  And our cats are strictly inside cats, and for good reason.  I was confused.  Jordan then explained that he heard a loud noise, and then another loud noise, and went to investigate and there I found him staring out the window.  We soon figured out that the first noise was Kea somehow opening the cracked window wider, and the second was her clawing through the screen on the window and squeezing through.

Jordan hurried and ran out to get her and I ran to get my glasses so I could actually see and in the small minute time frame she had vanished.  We looked all over our neighborhood for the next hour, we looked up trees, under cars, in bushes and nothing.  We took the puppies out hoping they would smell her, we even brought Kloe out to see if she could locate her sister. Nothing.  I must have walked over the the area 20 times.  It didn't make sense, we kept saying, it's so unlike her.  Usually when they get out they stay close but we couldn't find her, and we were horrified to think how far away she could possibly get with each minute. 

I posted on Facebook that my cat had run off, hoping that randomly someone might see her and let me know.  My friend Maggie saw the post and called saying she was on her way to help with the search.  She came right as I was about to lose it completely and said that in this heat she probably wasn't running around, but was most likely hunkered down in the shade somewhere.  This statement made perfect sense and was ridiculously calming.  We continued our search, and walked all over the condo complex several more times, hoping that she was close.  Maggie walked around with a cat toy and dangled it in front of bushes hoping to entice her out, Jordan walked around with a broom and wacked the bushed hoping to scare her out, and I walked around with cat treats hoping to appeal to her tummy.  Nothing.  At this point we had to consider she got farther away and expanded our search. 

I took the car out and drove around for a while.  And, nothing.  When I got back I felt unbelievably discouraged and pretty much broke down.  My cat was gone, and I was never going to see her again.  Maggie suggested that we look in the backyards closest to our complex.  Which we did, and was followed by a weird man talking about his pit bulls, and learned of the drug deals that happen in the area at night, also my weird pit bull man.  No Kea in random people's backyards. 

We went back home and made posters to hang, and I emailed all the shelters in the area asking them to let us know if a cat by her description came in.  By this time it was 4:30 and we were starting to think that if she was holed up somewhere she wouldn't come out until it was cooler, but decided to go out walking again and just sit and wait until she comes home.  We did a thorough search of the complex and Maggie started climbing into and behind all the bushes and really giving them a good look.  One particular hedge she kept saying that it was really thick and dark, and would be the perfect place for her to hide.  Maggie continued her search and crawled into the very last bush in the entire complex, and shouted that she found her.  I thought I was hearing things, and ran over.  I called out to Jordan who was about to go out and put more posters up and he came running around the corner just as Maggie pulled her out of the bush.  After a long hot day of hiding in that dang bush we walked past a million times she didn't even protest when I wrapped my arms tightly around her and smothered her.  She was not escaping my grasp.  I can't even describe the relief I felt.

We determined she was too scared to come out when we called her and wacked the bushes.  And this is why her name should have been Dastard. 

das·tard

–noun
1.a mean, sneaking coward.

–adjective
2.of or befitting a dastard; mean, sneaky, and cowardly.