CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE: CAT PURR-FECTLY FINE AFTER OWNER'S ORDEAL

I got home from work the other night and between changing clothes and checking the answering machine and deciding what to make for dinner, it was an hour or so before I realized what was missing.

The cat.

Melissa, also known as Little Miss when she's being sweet and Dead Meat when she's not, usually lurks by the front door so she can try to sneak out while I'm coming in. There was no sign of her.

She wasn't in the closets or sleeping on any of the windowsills or hiding in the kitchen cabinets or on top of the refrigerator. She wasn't even under the covers just in case I'd left the electric blanket on.

So I grabbed the flashlight and went outside to look for her. Melissa is an indoor cat. She'd never been outside, and I'm still not sure how or when she slipped out.

I didn't find her, and even dishes of food on the front and back porches didn't coax her home.

Dejected, and nearly in tears, I went back inside to wait and mope.

You know us single women and our cats. We may not let men treat us like doormats, but felines have us wrapped around their little paws.

Besides, cats are a lot easier to housebreak than men.

By about 8 o'clock, I was hopeful a kind-hearted stranger had picked her up and was planning to take her to the Humane Society in the morning.

By 10:30 or so, I was convinced that one of those awful people who steal animals and sell them to laboratories for unspeakable pseudoscientific experiments had absconded with my Little Miss.

At that point, I was becoming a little maudlin about the black and white cat hair coating everything in my apartment.

It was almost 11 when two kind-hearted neighbors from up the street brought her back. Melissa had been curled up asleep in their trash can.

She ran away from a cushy life in my apartment to sleep in a trash can?

Melissa -- still Little Miss at that point -- was not fazed by her ordeal. My ordeal, apparently. She yawned and stretched and went to check out her food dish. Then she yowled at me, either because I hadn't given her new food or because I let her sneak out of the house and get stuck outside in the cold and the rain.

That's when Little Miss was magically replaced by her evil twin, Dead Meat.

"Do you know how worried I was? You could have been bleeding on the side of the road, for all I knew! You could have been kidnapped! You didn't even call!" I screamed at the cat, who started washing a paw.

Lecturing a cat is a waste of breath. They understand everything you're telling them. They just don't care.

And they're usually not the least bit grateful for their people's time and sacrifice. Then they become the most affectionate creatures on the planet, without warning and utterly without precedent.

That's why we love them. Even when they leave little dusty paw prints all over our hearts.

I've decided that when I get old (really old, I mean) I want to be the lady with all the cats. There's always one Crazy Old Cat Lady in the neighborhood who spends half her pension check on kibble and cat litter.

Maybe I'll still be chasing Melissa around the block.

~Peggy O'Farrell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.