I almost lost a cat.
Patrick, my landlord / the guy I’m renting a room in, has two cats. One of them’s name is Roast Beef. He’s a really adventurous little fella who climbs into my bed every time my door is open, meows the sweetest little purr, and jumps in and rubs his black fur against any surface he can find.
So I left the house at around 1am on the 10th (Sunday) to grab some water bottles from the car. As I left, I saw Roasty wag its little tail with me outside, sneaking out like a little muhfucker. Keep in mind that Patrick had already warned me a couple of times to make sure he doesn’t leave and to hold onto the door so that his little catty butt doesn’t make its way into the big bad world.
On this snowy night, I saw the cat venture onto a small, wooden part of the front yard, right below the porch and the wooden deck. It was hiding out and being a cute little thing. I tried to get him back out but he clawed at me a couple of times. Me, not knowing how cats operate, retreated. How dare the little cat claw at me! He growled a couple of times, similar to a tiger or a lion waiting for its prey. Its eyes became huge and I had to think of how to get him inside.
I googled “how to get a cat to come to you” and saw something about wrinkling the baggage of treats and conditioning him to come to the treat. So I went inside and started looking for treats; I found one in the cabinet room and came outside.
Except he wasn’t there.
Ugh, I kept digging around in the little garden-y front porch. I went inside to grab a bowl with water. I kept caling out “Rooooasstyyyy! rooooasty!” to no avail.
I didn’t really panic. In fact, the only thing I could think of is twitter posts from self-help dudes who say “leaders need to be able to understand urgency.” All I could think about was, why am I not being urgent right now? which kind of made me a little bit more urgent. My calls became a little bit louder, but not too loud as to wake everyone up.
Then, I noticed there were little kitty footsteps in the snow going towards the back of the house. I followed the footsteps that led to the steps on the back porch. Nothing. Towards a trash bin the footsteps ended, and I didn’t see footsteps pointing back, but roasty just wasn’t there.
I started panicking and left a voicemail. “Hey Patrick, this is *defeated voice* Kevin,” I said, describing the situation. “It’s 2:20am right now, I’ve been looking for Roast Beef for a while and I can’t find him.”
As soon as I clicked the red “End” button on my phone, I saw a little head pop up from underneath the deck. It was Roasty. He’d been hiding under the deck, cold as can be from the freezing temperatures, looking for a place to cozy up and stay safe.
I took a big sigh of relief as he saw me head towards the door and followed me into the door, safe and sound.
KEVIN KIM 