"Yowie" wrote in message
...
Now that our hearts have calmed down...

Pickle is an indoor outdoor cat now. Generally he goes out in the morning
and usually returns after
an hour or two of making sure the place is safe and secure. He'll sit
patiently by the back door and wait until someone notices him to let him
back in. Sometimes he'll go out two or three times in one day (depending
on how willing folks are to give him door service, but he's always back
for dinner. *Always*.

Not yesterday.

Pickle didn't closely supervise Fluffy's dinner & bed routine as he
normally does if he's already in the house. Therefore I thought he was
still out. When it was time for the cats to have dinner (Fluffy has to
have hers first or she'll snarf up the cat food in preference) I opened
the back door to let Pickle in. He wasn't there. I called 'Pickle Pickle
Pickle Pickle' as I sometimes do. No luck.

(here's how I call Pickle:


On the off chance he was around the front instead, I went to the front
door and did the Pickle Siren Song. No Pickle.

Sometimes he's quite some way away and needs a few minutes to hurtle back
for dinner. So, I fed Suki & Shadow and tried again at both doors, this
time with the shaking crunchies box. No sign.

Pickle is not a stupid cat (unlike his brother) and I was reasonably
confident he had not got himself in too much trouble - it was cold outside
last night (all right, cold for *us*) and I figured perhaps he had
aldready holed up somewhere and didn't here me call. I hoped and trusted
that he'd be home the next morning.

Naturally I overslept this morning and didn't have time to do a search for
Pickle. Best I could do was call for him once (to no avail) and hop in the
car and go, bad hair day notwithstanding (now I remember why long hair is
better - even the worst bad hair day can be dealt with by a pony tail). I
rang Joel several times from work to see if Pickle had turned up, and no,
he hadn't.

I got home, shovelled down dinner and found a torch. Half an hour later I
had also found the appropriate sized batteries that still had a charge,
and went on a Pickle search up and down the street. I do realise that I
looked and sounded like an idiot calling "Pickle Pickle Pickle Pickle" and
shaking a kibble box up and down our street, but at least I wasn't in
daggy old flannel PJs and bunny slippers this time. Imagine a grown woman
with Kibble Box in one hand, PoohBear torch in the other, (it was the only
torch and battery combination that worked, and I had to beg Cary for it)
yelling http://members.optusnet.com.au/~drwatson/Sounds/Pickle1.wav at
the top of her lungs up and down the street. Not a pretty sight....

Still no Pickle. Joel and I were bemused by his absence and I was starting
to worry.

"SHHH! Wait! Whats that?" Joel said suddenly. He turned off the TV and
asked The Yowlet to be quiet. The TV was obligingly mute, but Cary of
course as not "WHY DADDY????" he yelled.

"I thought I heard Pickle... very faintly... he must be outside".

Out I dashed again with both torch and hope, only to be dissapointed once
more.

"Pickle Pickle Pickle Pickle" I called again.

"MUMMY?", The Yowlet questioned at the top of his very healthy lungs,
"WHERE'S PICKLE?"

Both of us answered "SHHH! Be Quiet!"

Cary, thinking he was in trouble, started to cry, which of course,
entirely failed to help.

After calming the poor boy down, we explained we had to be super extra
special quiet because we were trying to hear Pickle meow. If it was Suki
or Shadow we wouldn't have this problem of course, because they are both
loud meowers. VERY loud. Suki because she's deaf and can't hear herself,
and Shadow, well, she just likes 'singing', particularly at 3am.... but
thats another story. Pickle on the other hand has a very quiet 'mi' sound,
barely more than a kitten's mew, even when he's *starving*. No seranading
his lady loves from the rooftops for him (even if he did still have the
bits that would make him want to)

Finally, after singing "Pickle Pickle Pickle Pickle" several more times, I
too heard the faint 'mi' of a Pickle meow. It sounded like it was coming
from...OMG! The Kitchen!

I raced to the kitchen and opened every cupboard and drawer, fully
expecting a very anoyed Pickle to leap out.

Nothing.

Perplexed, I called out once again, "Pickle Pickle Pickle Pickle".

The Fridge? Surely not.

Nope.

"Pickle Pickle Pickle Pickle".

Again, a faint "Mi" from the general direction of the...

..of the sofa.

WTF?

"Mi?"

*Definately* coming from the sofa. But how?

Joel hopped up and removed the cushion and out popped a very relieved
stressed Pickle. He meowed his disgust once more and headed straight for
the door. I let him out and he ducked around the corner to do what a cat
must before heading straight back to the kibble bowl and wolfing down last
night's leftovers. He's now snoozing on my bed - a nice flat surface not
known for eating cats.

Now, I know that sofas often eat small change, and ours seems to have a
distinct predeliction for our remote controllers (particularly the A/C).
Ours also clearly favours pens, teaspoons and McDonald's fries, but a
fully grown *cat*? Surely not! But there it was, looking inconspicious,
was a tear in the fabric under the cushion, just big enough for an overly
curious cat to get through if he worked on it, but clearly not big enough
to get back out of when the cushion was pushed back, and certainly not big
enough when one or more of us was also lounging on said cushion and
blocking all exits.

Pickle, I am quite sure, is now down to 8 lives. And will no doubt be very
wary of vicious cat eating sofas from now on.

Yowie
--
If you're paddling upstream in a canoe and a wheel falls off, how many
pancakes can you fit in a doghouse? None, icecream doesn't have bones.

ROTFLMAOWTIME! I played that wav file over and over and over and it made me
laugh my butt off every time - I finally put it on "continuous play" so I
wouldn't have to keep hitting the "play" button! Too, too funny!

Hugs,

CatNipped