The House That Ate Cats...

I have 4 cats. I never meant to have this many. I started out with 2, Lestat and Whitney. A couple of years ago Lestat got out of the house and was killed on the highway. Whitney became very clingy...so much that the minute my husband got out of bed she would jump on his shoulders. He had to put a t-shirt on as he was getting out of bed. She was also chewing through phone cords which is a bad habit of her when she is stressed. So after a few months of that I went to the Humane Society to pick out a new cat.

My husband and Shelby both requested a kitten and I figured I would get a kitten. That was until I walked into the cat house. This Humane Society had an old house that was used just to keep cats. There was a kiddie pool filled with litter in the kitchen and cages lining the walls of the room next to that. I sat in that house for 2 hours trying to decide and couldn't. I kept looking at the kittens knowing they had a better shot at getting a new home but the adults cats there might not. Do I get an adult or a kitten? The lady mentioned that she would give me 2 cats for the price of one. I ended up going home that night empty handed.

The next morning I still didn't know if I would bring home a kitten or an adult and was mumbling such as I was walking out the door. Just as the front door was shutting I heard my husband say that he knew what I would do. I went back in and asked him and he said I would bring home two. So I went back and brought home a mama cat (Penny) and a fat black kitten (Earl). So the cat count was now up to 3.

A year later we moved in my mom while we were building our house. She had taken in my sister's cat, Bullet. She also had a tabby that she found as a stray years before. So while living at my mom's house, there were 5 cats. Now Bullet was never meant to live in a multi-cat house. He tormented mom's cat but seemed to get along with mine. So when we moved into our new house, we brought Bullet along. That made 4 cats.

Six months later, Shelby moved in full time. She had 2 cats at her mom's who were more or less abandoned in the condo for a couple of months. The condo was about to repossessed so we found a home for one and brought the other to our house. Enter Precious...cat number 5.

Unfortunately, Bullet ran away two years ago which brought us back to the current count of 4 cats.

But today I can only find 1 cat...Whitney, the oldest and wisest of the bunch. When I put Jed down for a nap I noticed that the storage area door was open. We have two storage areas connected to both Jed's and Shelby's rooms. It is basically the space between the walls and the roof. I closed the door, read Jed a few books, turned on all his music boxes and came back downstairs. Then I heard the thumping noise, followed by mewing.

I did a quick cat count and can only find Whitney. It appears that the other 3 have wandered into the storage area. From the sounds of it, it seems Earl may have found a way under the floorboards. I haven't heard anything from Precious or Penny. Now I have to wait for Jed to get up to see if I can coax them back out. I just hope that Earl doesn't get stuck somewhere. He is not a dainty little thing. Actually he is far from it. Just last night I weighed him and he was a whopping 18 lbs. I left the door in Shelby's room open so hopefully they will find their way out.

Oh, Penny just passed through. Off to do another cat (roll) call.