A cat, a house, a dog...and I am not Superman!

Just wanted to share the story of my day. The things life teaches us when we least expect it!

Got up today to take Ike (our 2 year old cat) into the vet to get her wellness check so we could give her drugs for the trip to our new home. Or just whenever we want for fun, but mostly for the trip to be sure there is no mewing. Max (our 7 year old Border Collie Mix) would bark at her if she did that and there would be total mayhem in the car. Mark decided he would put Ike in the new carrier to see how she would do, about 45 min. ahead of the time we needed to leave. She was fine, staying in a few minutes and calmly walking out after the experiment. That carrier is much smaller and better suited to our 4 pound wonder cat Guyton, so we got the bigger carrier out instead. That was about the time Ike went postal on us. Seriously, if the cat had thumbs and a gun, it might have been all over. Finally, after chasing her round and round, she ran and hid under our bed. We could not even coax her out with bacon (oh, yeah, that is another story), and she ran into the guest bedroom under the bed. Well, we have now lost our travel time, so I call the vet and actually said, "I have no idea how many more places this damn cat will squeeze herself into before we can get there!" They said no problem, laughing a bit like this happens a lot, and told me we should just come whenever we can grab her and get there.

While I was on the phone, Mark had chased Ike into the living room, through the dining room and around through the kitchen. I dove at her in the family room, and she scrambled BACK into the guest bedroom. I am now cussing at this #$#@*# cat. I pulled the bed away from the wall enough to squeeze myself in and I felt cat claws and heard madcap hissing...about that time the phone rang. I disentangle myself from the bed and the claws to answer it. "Hello, this is the Real Estate Listing Service. We have a request for a showing for you today at 10 AM" and I said, "Wait...you mean in 45 min? Really?" I freaked out. Rather like the cat. My voice was about as high as Minnie Mouse or Cindy Bear...and Yogi was not calming me down. I said, "Oh, my god, no, I am packing the entire house, and chasing a cat to take it to the vet. There is no way I can do this today!! Can you ask them if there is another time?" She was great and said yes, she would let me know. I bet I said said much more than that in my pure panicked way....I hung up with the listing service and called our agent. She talked me off my perfectionist ledge, and Mark made me sit down to talk...and we decided we could have the house ready for showing by 2PM. Still no cat back in the carrier. We had no idea at this point where she had hidden.

SO I called the service back, they changed the period of NO SHOWINGS from 10 - 2PM, and we went back to chasing said cat. No luck. More hissing and clawing. I said, "TO HELL WITH HER, I am not giving her our new address! She can stay with the house." Called the vet, they laughed and said, "Can you come at 4:30?" Mark said, "YES!! She wants to be fed then...we will trick her and it will be perfect!" More laughter. NOT from me. It is now 10:30. We have been chasing that #^@$&#* CAT since 9AM. Now I have so much nervous energy, I start rearranging boxes (the kitchen and bathrooms were scrubbed down yesterday, so they are clean), get out the sweeper, WHICH I think just might just suck up the reluctant cat, but that didn't happen either. More wishful thinking on my part I suppose, as I am still mad at that silly cat. Mark took the Wal-Mart list to get the items needed and by noon, the house was ready for showing.

At 11:30, the listing service let me know the agent will bring the clients to see our house at 10AM tomorrow morning, relieving the pressure for the day. Of course I am still worried, because I have had the house perfectly staged for nobody for 6 weeks, with about 2 showings. I sure hope the folks coming to see the house are not teatotalers and enjoy the creative decorating with liquor boxes, because they do look quite lovely in the corners. They might enjoy some of the labels. Like the one that says, "Yes, this really IS a wine box" or the one that says, "No Whiskey here, only pots and pans. Keep looking!". I was entertaining myself by creating labels.

Ike came out at lunch time, on cue, and decided we were just fine again. Probably because we control the food. She just padded right out like nothing had just transpired. WOW. So later that afternoon, not to be outdone by her again, about 20 minutes before we needed to leave for the vet...again...she was sleeping beside me on the couch. I scooped her up and dumped her into the carrier. Not a peep during my route to the carrier and she didn't fight me. No claws, no sound, no problem. She mewed a bit after my dumping her in (about 5 min.) and then was quiet. Max, however, decided that I must not understand the cat was TRAPPED in a BOX, and began his "Momma, Timmy is in the well!" routine. First he 'talks' to me. Then he barks at me. Then he runs over to the carrier and barks. Back to me. More barking. Now grabbing at my hands and being insistent. Back to the carrier, with more barking. To which I kept saying, "Max the kitty is fine! Go lie down."

Poor Max was quite perplexed and not at all happy with the situation. I guess he decided if I was that stupid, he better work on Mark. And then he had to do all that over again. Damn that smart dog! If he were just a bit more intelligent he would figure out that a cat in the box is worth two in the bush...or something like that. Mark repeated what I kept saying, and he just looked so confused and not at all ready to give in...not Mark, the dog. Well, Mark too, but that was something else I was trying to tell him about the configuration of the new laundry room in Greenville...

So we got Max settled in with a dog cookie tucked into a toy to distract him, we left with a quiet kitty cat, and her check-up was perfect. Only she never mewed. So why the heck did I do all that? TO STOP THE MEWING IN THE CAR...which apparently, she no longer does. $53 later, we find out our cat likes to ride in the car, the dog WILL bark at the cat in the carrier, and liquor boxes CAN add to the drama of staging. Huh.

And that, as they say, is the rest of the story.

Except for bacon. I will save that for another day.