The vanishing calico: A mystery is solved

If I had to describe Miss Kitty, the cat who owns the house my wife and I call home, in one word, it would be: too smart for her own good.

You're right. That's six words. Close enough for bailout calculations.

This has been an interesting week for the cat that managed to survive on her own quite well until she found a couple of softies who treat her like royalty.

In order to survive, Miss Kitty had to be smart. We still see flashes of the instinctive survivor from time to time. Miss Kitty also is smart enough to know when playing cute and adorable will melt our hearts and get her just about anything she wants.

Except, that is, the right to snuggle down on soft sofa cushions in the living room or pillows in the bedrooms.

As a matter of fact, Miss Kitty fully understands that her inside-the-house privileges are limited.

Of course, she is a cat, which means it is her bounden duty to push the envelope.

There have a few occasions in the few years she has ruled our roost when Miss Kitty slinked into other parts of the house, managing to disappear into thin air.

The storage/utility area of our basement holds a particular fascination for Miss Kitty. If she has any priority other than eating special treats and sleeping while inside the house, it is finding a way to slip unobtrusively down the stairs and ... vanish.

I'm not kidding. When she's gone, she's gone.

A few weeks ago Miss Kitty disappeared for a couple of hours before I spotted her out of the corner of my eye. She had nestled into some old cushions lying on one of the basement storage shelves.

I told my wife that we didn't have to worry about the disappearing cat anymore, because I was wise to her ways and would know exactly where to look if she went AWOL again.

Well, it happened Sunday. Miss Kitty came in about midmorning and immediately curled up in her wicker chair. When my wife and I started some projects in the kitchen, Miss Kitty decided to relocate to the nearby stool, closer to the action.

Shortly before noon, we made plans to go out for lunch. We were almost out the door before we remembered Miss Kitty was still in the house.

And nowhere to be seen.

We made the usual room-to-room search with no success. So I went to the basement and checked the cushions on the shelf. No Miss Kitty.

My wife, who had left the door open briefly earlier in the morning, concluded that Miss Kitty was outside.

So we left for lunch. No Miss Kitty when we returned. Several times during the afternoon we called Miss Kitty. And called, and called.

Some nine hours after we realized Miss Kitty was not around, we were getting ready for bed. I decided, for some unknown reason, to check some of the darker basement crannies with a flashlight. I saw that a cat-sized object could, if it tipped the wrong way, slide off the edge of the shelf with the cushions and get trapped behind boxes and suitcases on the lower shelf. As soon as I moved a few boxes, I spotted Miss Kitty's shiny eyes.

As soon as she was able, she jumped out of her hole. My wife and I rejoiced that the lost had been found. We made a big fuss over Miss Kitty, who meowed once and squirmed to get down and head for the back door, where she slipped into the dark night to do what cats do.

The next morning Miss Kitty was in her heated hut in the garage. The world, which had made another revolution, was right again.

R. Joe Sullivan is the editorial page editor of the Southeast Missourian. E-mail: jsullivan@semissourian.com.