Homies, Day 2: "I Thought He was with You."

You know it's a bad sign when, by Tuesday, you're wandering around yawning and scratching and bumping into things. We stayed up way too late and woke up much too early, and the time in between can hardly be classified as sleeping. We held a vote and decided to wait until evening to deal with the animals. When we got home about thirteen hours later, we fed the silently beleagured bunnies and the hyper-active dog, then trudged upstairs to absorb another flick.

Halfway through, during a lull in the action, we heard a scratching sound coming from downstairs. Naturally, we finished the movie, and then went downstairs with a significant measure of trepidation to see what was going on.

We stopped short at the door to the laundry room.

"Say, wasn't there something about a cat?" I wondered.

"Sounds familiar."

"He hasn't been fed in ... what ... almost three days?"

"Don't worry. Cats are fairly docile creatures."

My homie had obviously forgotten the one part about cats being the kings of the serengetti. When we opened the door, there was a flash of orange fur and a freakishly expressive: "Reeeeer!"

The cat bounded up onto a couch and out an open window into the street. We watched for a few seconds, dumbfounded.

"Are you sure it's the same cat?" Asked my homie. "He's a lot thinner than I remember."

Then we frantically pulled on our shoes and followed.

We spent the evening and the early morning hours wandering around the neighborhood shouting: "Here kitty! Kitty! Come on out, we want to talk! Look, we're sorry about the litterbox. It won't happen again, we swear! Listen, I know you're angry, but if you just come out and hear us out ..."

The neighbors complained, punctuating their polite suggestions with assorted fruits and vegetables hurled in our general direction.

At sunup, we wandered wearily back home and took care of the bunnies and dog. We're still not sure what we're going to tell the cat's owner, but it'll take some serious creativity to get through this one.