We’ll have ‘It’s All Happening!” later, but this morning we exult in the return of the inestimable Katie McCollow to our humble li’l blog. The story below will make you laugh, it may make you cry, and it’ll certainly help you understand why some folks spend all day YouTubing cat videos. Without further pause, here is “Toonces, Come Home!” by Katie McCollow (cue the Kermit “Yaaayyyyyyy!!!!!” clap)
The Author
I’m WELL, thanks. Hey, no biggie, I’ve only been gone for over a year, it’s completely cool that none of you came looking for me. Where have I been, you didn’t ask? Oh nowhere, just in a 10 x 10 shed like in that movie Room. My hair looks like a mop that was used daily to clean the floor of a public bathhouse and never rinsed out, my skin is the shade of an arts and crafts plaster, I have exactly zero milligrams of vitamin D in my bloodstream and I have a five year-old child that William H. Macy can’t even look at for the shame of it all, but other than that, it was terrific. Thanks for caring.
No, no, of course I joke. My hair looks fine. Fine-ish. Life is flying by, isn’t it? I feel like I woke up and a year went by.
But looking for lost loved ones has been heavy on my mind this week, and I’ll tell you why; my cat disappeared. Yes, the very same cat I wrote about bringing home in September of 2014, right here at the MediumHappy.
I texted John repeatedly through the whole ordeal, as I know him to be a cat lover, fellow sap and good friend, and he kindly invited me to document my heartbreak here on his site, as writing things down is believed to be a therapeutic tool.
If you’re new to MH and you’re thinking, “What is this nonsense? Where is my daily dose of scantily clad ladies masquerading as a sports blog?” Here’s the executive summary: About a year and a half ago, my family got a kitten after two decades of being a pet-free household.
Having a pet was too much work, too messy, just another added responsibility and expense. It held no appeal for either my husband or me. Sure, the kids over the years did the occasional bit of pet-begging, particularly our oldest, who is an avowed vegetarian and animal lover, but if we listened to the unreasonable requests of our children all the time, we’d have crack for dinner every night.
Why Katie, I know your children to be lovely people, I don’t think that’s true, you may be thinking, and you would be right. Our children are lovely people and I imagine if you were someone who wanted crack for dinner, you probably wouldn’t bother asking or observing a formal mealtime. Also not to say crack addicts can’t be lovely people, it is a disease after all, and I don’t even know why I wrote that. Such is the story of my life.
Toonces, wondering where you have been all day with her food
So we got this kitten, and the only reason we did was my girlfriend’s cat got in a family way and she needed to unload a litter. When I told the kids, they were super excited, but my husband was genuinely peeved with me for at least a half hour. Even after he agreed to give it a try, he wasn’t thrilled about it. Then she came home.
Do I even need to tell you what happened after that? To label us “Crazy Cat People” would be grossly inaccurate in its understatedness. Is ‘understatedness’ a word? Who cares? I speak fluent kitty cat! Shmoop shmoop shmoopy boooop meooooowwwww! Maaaaawwwwoooooowww.
When Toonces joined our family, we instantly became her emotional slaves; constantly taking her temperature, walking on eggshells, completely besotted and feeling like we’d won the Super Bowl and an Oscar combined whenever she deigned to point her infrequent beams of kitty sunshine on us.
She does love us (yes she does! Shutup!!) but she’s scared of strangers; she hisses and glares and tends to get combative if they stay too long. It’s soooo cute you guys.
If someone overstays their welcome, she’ll lunge at them with these black, dead eyes and bared teeth with her tail all fat and they’ll be like OMG what’s with your cat and we’ll be like Um, what’s with you, I think is what you meant.
This doesn’t hurt at all, you guys
And pity the fool who actually tries to pick her up. You only have yourself to blame. But when it’s just us, you should see her…she couldn’t be sweeter…she only bites when we deserve it…we know we’re not supposed to sleep past five or shut the bathroom door…she hates the dry stuff…it’s our fault…
When we woke up last Monday morning, expecting another wonderful day with our own little fur-covered Frances Farmer, we had no idea how our world would be rocked. The sun shimmered against the skyscrapers of lower Manhattan, revealing one of the most beautiful days of the year. It was a morning that would change the world forever…
(Editor’s Note: TF, Katie. I mean, we don’t even need the “W” before the TF here, do we?)
Only I didn’t give a flying eff how the weather was in Manhattan, because when I opened Toonces’ food to dole out her breakfast, she didn’t come running. Huh? I checked her usual spots, but I knew.
“The cat is gone,” I shrieked calmly, waking my husband and kids. We all ran outside and did our ritual singsong of calling her name—she’s gotten out before, sure, she’s a cat—but always in the middle of the day, and she always regrets it quickly–she hides under the tarp on the deck, then runs in as soon as we open the door, tail fat, head down, mewling pitifully.
The weird part is, Katie & Mike actually have three normal children
She loves to sit in the window and act like a tough guy, but when she actually finds herself out in the big bad world where the food is still alive and the Tomcats are tomcatty, she’s a total, well, pussy. And it was clear she’d been out for some time. All night. She wasn’t in her spot under the tarp. She wasn’t anywhere.
We kept trying to calm each other down; She’ll be back. She never stays out too long. She’s probably having the time of her life! But we knew it wasn’t true, we know her–she’s just not the kind of gal who finds camping a good time.
What she does think is fun is being carried around in a cloth bag in which my husband cut out windows so she can see. He wears a sweatshirt with her picture on it that says “TEAM TOONCES” while this occurs.
We force other people (to whom we are probably explaining that she is a complete delight, not at all the demon they think she is) to watch her leap happily into the bag when he gets it down from the fridge and calls her, and we expect them to applaud.
Crazy Cat People? Please. Next to us, Crazy Cat People are Logic professors.
The minutes turned to hours, the hours… we emailed our neighbors and posted on social media. We put up fliers. We carpet-bombed our entire end of town with emergency postcards. I called every shelter in the city and suburbs every hour, and refreshed all their real-time websites every minute. We started novenas to Saints Anthony and Francis of Assisi.
I could be kidnapped like the daughter in Taken right now, and where is my family? Do you know what a problem cat-trafficking is?
We searched and searched and it got dark, and in the wee hours we all went to bed feeling like cement blocks of sadness, except for my husband. He stayed up and out. And my oldest, who slept on the couch and actually didn’t sleep at all, but joined her dad at various points throughout the night. OK, I went to bed. Are you happy?
I woke up intermittently all night to the sound of him gently calling her name from different points on our street. He finally came in around dawn, sniffling. I got up and went downstairs, and the sight of the untouched food outside our back door wracked me with bone-shaking, snot-bubbly sobs that didn’t let up for hours.
By mid-day my head was the size of a pumpkin (it’s usually only the size of a squash) from crying. Was she hurt, dead, did someone pick her up, take her in, steal her? Would she spend the rest of her days as someone else’s beloved cat?
My poor, grief-stricken daughter called in sick to work. My sister came over and helped me search some more, and my son put up more fliers. My other sister called all the local vets. My sister-in-law in California checked my local Craigslists and shelters. She brought St. Jude off the bench.
My friends and neighbors were incredible: no surprise because they are wonderful people. My friend/boss brought us a high-powered flashlight and told us about a house close by that was rumored to be a den of cat-nappers. He drove past to make sure Toony wasn’t there, being fed kibble bon-bons and lies before being shipped off to marry a Saudi cat-prince.
(Editor’s Note: The author’s family never phoned Liam Neeson for help, but they considered it.)
Truly amazing was how kind and helpful perfect strangers were. On social media they shared our status like wildfire. They started calling and emailing us- one woman called me from a town two hours away. I phoned a shelter in another town (Bloomington, Minn.) but accidentally called a shelter in another state (Bloomington, Ind.), and the woman there talked to me for fifteen minutes anyway.
People shared tips and encouragement and stories of their own cats disappearing and how awful it was. Some got their cats back, some never did and even after years, they needed to share their heartbreak and let us know our desperation wasn’t crazy at all.
We followed the tips to the letter; put out cans of tuna in oil, put her carrier with her favorite blanket inside in the garage with the door open, put out some of our clothes so she could smell us.
Someone sent an article that sounded most to us how Toonces would react to finding herself stuck outside, and it gave us hope. It theorized she was very likely very close by, but so freaked out at finding herself outside, alone in the middle of the night that she’d gone into ‘deep cover’ mode, meaning she’d basically turned herself into Rambo in the first movie, and she wouldn’t come out or make a peep until she was good and G.D. ready.
It buoyed us a little, but our hearts were still leaden when we went to bed, again, very late. I slept fitfully, dreaming of her napping on my neck.
Oh, how I longed to wake up with my eyes puffed shut from her dander and not my own tears. Oh, how I longed to pick up a shirt only to find it unwearable for the pound of hair stuck to it. Oh, how I longed to wonder what smelled so disgusting in the basement. Where was my kitty? I wandered the moors of my heart like a ghost. (Don’t even act like that’s not a good line.)
All but my husband went to bed, that is. He stayed out again, believing if she showed herself, it would probably be in the middle of the night when things were quiet and she felt safe.
At 4:30 a.m., he came crashing into the house, basically performing the Zu Zu’s petals scene from It’s a Wonderful Life, Toonces in his hold. He’d been sitting on the deck, in the rain, and had called her name softly, and from the roof of the shed he heard her little meow. 52 hours she’d been gone.
“Reunited, and it feels so good/Reunited, and it’s understood…”
Well, my friends, a happier household you haven’t seen than ours, in the hour before dawn on Wednesday morning. Typically catlike, she wouldn’t tell us what happened, but it doesn’t matter. She slept like the dead for the next twelve hours, as did my poor husband. We got her chipped (No, she wasn’t, and yes, we know how stupid it was) and a GPS device for her collar in case she gets out again.
We are still skittish, but she seems fine. All those kind people who helped us in ways big and small cheered her return—pet lovers really are nicer people.
And we will pay it forward–I will never ignore a lost pet poster again and I now follow the lost cats FB page in my town–it costs me nothing to take a picture, make note of the information, call someone and tell them what I learned. In short, I’m a little bit less of an asshole because of Toonces.
Or maybe more of one—the next day, when all was happy and well and it was safe to go back in the water again, my younger sister (who was very nice and helpful through it all) called.
“You do realize,” she said, “That yesterday you called me and asked me to call some vets for you and I said ‘Sure, but I have to get (her adorable six-year-old daughter) to her MRI later this afternoon’ and you said ‘OK’ and hung up?”
I did not realize that. A smaller asshole or a bigger one—my question to you, good MediumHappy readers, is why can’t I be both?
And about my beautiful niece, whom I adore, she is fine. I think? I mean I’m assuming.
