What’s on a cat’s mind?
Once in a year, my mum goes on a 3 week holiday. I don’t live with my mum, but in those 3 weeks, Jeanny (an acquiantance) and I take care of Tequila, our ginger cat. Usually he never stays inside for longer than 24 hours, neither does he come back within 24 hours. But in those 3 weeks, he has to stay inside. Not to mention that he hates it 
So 3,5 weeks ago, my mum left and I ‘visited’ him every day. The third day wasn’t any different from all the other days I took care of him; I laid down on the couch, waiting for him to get comfy on my belly and then pet him untill he’s got enough of it. So after a little while, he jumped off, sat down in front of the back door and started meowing. “Let me ooouuuuttt!”. Of course I ignored that.
He was looking pretty mad, but that was nothing new. So when he made his way to the kitchen, I planned to give him his delicious cat food and then leave again. So I followed him. But when I came across the front door, I saw I left it open. And, not to my surprise, the cat was gone. I went to see if he was just around our house, but no. I wasn’t too worried, because he would probably come back in a few hours/days anyway. So I left.
The bad thing was though that I had to work the next 3 days untill late, so I would probably miss him when he would come home, because he always comes back between half past 10 and 11 p.m. So from that day on, I checked every day whether he had come back or not. He just didn’t come back. I rang at neighbour’s doors to see if they noticed any sign of him, I called the animal shelter, I printed “MISSING” ads and every day I spent at least 10 minutes calling him. The neighbours probably couldn’t appreciate that since sometimes it was at 5 a.m. But still, he didn’t show up. By that time, I was pretty worried, but I still couldn’t imagine that something had happened to him.
In my last desperate attempt to find him, I called an acquiantance who is a what we call in Dutch “medium”. She’s got paranormal ‘powers’ (whether you believe in it or not). I asked her if she had any idea where that cat could be or where I had to search. And all she could ‘see’ was that he jumped in a car and that he sat in garden shed or something like that within a range of 5 km ánd that he was not stuck. From that moment on, I knew he took a holiday as well. He’s 8 years now and my mum has been at least 6 times on a 3 week holiday. He knows exactly when it’s ‘the time’; my mum starts packing, cat gets locked up, she leaves and suddenly Jeanny and I show up..
Yesterday my mum came back home, but Tequila still wasn’t back after being missed for more than 2,5 weeks. I can’t remember him being away for longer than a week.. Later that day, when she sent me a text in which she said that “Schnuffel” was back, I couldn’t be less surprised. I see this as the evidence for my suspicions that he’s been chilling out in some garden shed, counting down the days untill my mum would get back home and in meanwhile just kept ignoring me and my calls for him..
“Who would believe such pleasure from a wee ball o’ fur..”
Jenny Rutten
I'm Jenny, 22 years old, originally German but raised in the Netherlands. Currently I'm on exchange in Montréal, and hell yes I love it. Between all the trips, socializing, eating, drinking, partying, soccer and sometimes studying, I try to keep you updated about what's going on here. Hope you enjoy reading my blogs. You should, because it's part of your procrastination :)