48 Hours The Movie, Starring Our New Cat

by Kevin Burton

   This is a happy cat story – thank God.

   I wasn’t so happy around mid-day yesterday though.

   Sunday after church we ran a special errand,  to pick up Lakin, our new 6-year-old cat. The cat rescue place told us Saturday that she had just had her shots and we needed to wait a day to take her home. 

   Two Christmases ago we adopted two cats. But since then the 14-year-old developed bladder cancer and had to be put down. (I will tell her story sometime when I am able.)

   So we had one slot open.  I saw on Facebook that a declawed cat was available and I asked Jeannette if we could get her.

   Her name is Lakin, because she was found by Lake Afton. Our cat Ronnie was not too pleased to see another cat.  Since the older cat Gabbie died, Ronnie had been much more calm.  We weren’t sure how this introduction of a new cat would go over, so we are fostering Lakin and will complete the adoption if Ronnie and Lakin get along. Ronnie gets the last word.

   I was busily coaching our fantasy teams Sunday (four wins, one loss) when dinner time came. But we couldn’t find Lakin anywhere.

   After an hour, Jeannette found her in a place I never would have looked, on top of a little closet I use to keep some of my music stuff in. She had made an unauthorized leap from the floor to my downstairs computer desk, then to the top of the standalone closet.

   Wow, we have a jumper!  Our cat Ronnie keeps her feet on the ground because that’s where the food is; I’ll put it that way.

   Fast forward to yesterday.  It is meal time again, this time breakfast, and we can’t find Lakin.  I had just seen her maybe 45 minutes ago. I was in the man cave studying Bible verses.

   We were getting an early clue as to her parlor trick – disappearing.

   Then I heard a noise.  As a cat daddy I am used to hearing noises. Something got knocked over. But when we searched the house there was no carnage to be found. We both made at least two circuits of the house looking for the cat. Nothing.

   Jeannette had wondered aloud if Lakin had somehow crawled into one of two openings in our tile ceiling and was now prowling between the basement and main floor.

   This was a serious and a heart-rending problem, because we had no way to get Lakin out until and unless she was pleased to make an appearance.  Even worse, the main thing up there above the ceiling tiles is a generous helping of rat poison.

   Now if you could see the basement, you would know that there is virtually no way for the cat to get up there, especially not with extreme stealth. She would have created a racket and a mess.

   Part of me knew this, part of me panicked. After all, we had found her Sunday at the highest elevation she could reach. She is an explorer, an acrobat and a climber.

   I turned forensic scientist.

   There were no pawprints in the dust on the cabinet nearest the smaller opening (don’t judge! I’ll get to the dusting sometime.) There really wasn’t a landing spot for her in either opening. She would have had to spin a web like Spidercat and swing herself up there.

   I wasn’t thinking straight though. I was doing the exact thing I tell Jeannette not to do, imagining the worst-case scenario and borrowing trouble and stress. 

   I was wondering how I was going to tell the cat rescue people that we had taken excellent care of Lakin for almost 48 hours, but then we lost her….poisoned her….

   Jeannette and I then made two more circuits of the house. This led us to the master bedroom, the master bedroom closet..open the left door and…out pops Lakin. 

   She had darted into the closet unnoticed when Jeannette was retrieving something. There the cat stayed, not making a sound, until we found her.

  Not making a cat sound that is. The noise I heard? That was Lakin, in the closet, knocking over the aluminum bat we keep there in case of intruders.  That was the noise I heard from the man cave but couldn’t identify.

   Jeannette had looked in the closet once already without seeing her (and without the cat giving herself away). This was similar to what I  did last week, having to look twice in the car before finding my lost wallet.

   It took a little time to get my heart slowed down, but it finally did. 

   But this cat! They told us she was six but she acts like a pure kitten.  She pursues the cloth mouse at the end of the string with the energy no dignified six-year-old would use. And her feline leaping ability is such as I have only seen before on National Geographic.

   If she were a basketball player she would be the one making spectacular windmill dunks, SportsCenter top ten highlights.  You could call her a man-child, if she were human and male.

    We’re two days in with Lakin. There hasn’t been very much hissing yet, so we think the two cats will tolerate each other at least. 

   Jeannette said this blog post is just the beginning.

   “This is just the first one. I bet you’ll never run out of stories,” she said

   I think she’s right.