So I wake up this morning and my cat, Lindy isn’t on the bed.  “That’s strange”, I think, “Lindy never doesn’t sleep on the bed at home.”  But I think no big deal, she’s probably just changing her habits as she is wont to do from time to time being a cat and all.  I go through my daily morning routine and Lindy doesn’t show up throughout.  Now I’m starting to get worried.  Maybe she’s sick.  I look in all of her usual hiding spaces and can’t find her anywhere.  Then I think, “Did I even see her last night when I got home?”  No, no I hadn’t.  Uh oh.

I’ve lost Lindy in the house before.  There are not many places to hide, but there have been a few occasions when I’d go looking for her and not find her anywhere.  I’d check the hallway and she wouldn’t be there either.  This could go on for tens of minutes, me looking for Lindy, only to have her walk out of a hiding place that I swear I’ve checked a dozen times already.  I don’t know how she does it.  But I had checked all the usual spaces and not found her.  It was time for me to check the hallway.

Now, there’s something you should know about Lindy.  I have had her for five years now and she has always shown absolutely zero interest in exploring the hallway.  None.  I will come home and she will be sitting right next to the door waiting for me and she will kind of just stare out into the hallway a little and then scamper back to the counter for her welcome home petting.  This doesn’t happen all the time because she’s a cat, but it happens frequently enough that it’s almost habit.  So when I got home from volleyball and lugged my bike into the apartment I gave zero thought to Lindy even considering escaping into the hallway.  I was tired from volleyball and I had a bit to drink so I took a shower and fell almost immediately to sleep.

I walk out into the hallway and search around for her and she’s nowhere to be found.  But what I do find is a note taped up next to the elevator:

I am a horrible father.  The little frowny cat face is absolutely priceless.

So, yeah, Lindy escaped out into the hallway for the first time in forever.  She’s back home safe and sound and doesn’t seem at all traumatized.  Right now, she’s sitting in her usual spot where I will have the most likelihood of tripping over her.  The upstanding gentleman who found her said that he was taking out the garbage and just saw her in the hallway.  It turns out that this happened not very long after I had gotten home so she didn’t spend much time in the hallway.  He said that she didn’t cause any trouble and refused any remuneration even though he gave me some cans of cat food.  I didn’t think of it at the time but maybe he once owned a cat because they were three different types of food.

Hurray for cool people that look out for neighbors!  Here’s Lindy attempting to imitate the frowny cat face: