Lost and Found

Late last night, Tom invited a handful of our friends over.  But only the men showed up.  I didn't feel up to much, and being the only female anyways, I decided to just duck out and head to bed.  The guys, though, went for a long walk around the neighborhood.  We live on a large hill, and there are many long "Pittsburgh staircases" all over the place, leading down into the streets and valleys below.  While walking down one of these with the guys, Tom had realized that our cat, Lance, was following them.  He tried to grab Lance to take him back home, but apparently the cat seemed spooked by something and - very uncharacteristically - hissed and ran off into the woods.  Tom went back to try to find him after the friends went home, but with no luck.

Lance[lot] is MY cat.  My mom and I - hopeless "cat people" both - fell in love with him in a pet store years ago.  He was the last kitten left from his litter, sick with a bad cold, and six months old already.  His price was marked down from $600 to $100 (he's a purebred Siamese) because no one wanted to buy him.  But we had to have him.  He slept with me every night while I was in high school, and anytime I was visiting from college.  Once I moved out and had my own place, I convinced my mom to give him to me.  So Lance and I go way back.

Tom went out to the stairs again a couple times today, calling for Lance, but got no response.  Lance is an extremely friendly and people-loving cat.  I've had him fourteen years now, and in that time, he has run away twice before.  On both occasions, we finally found him MONTHS later, when he had been quite contentedly living with another family!!

So when Tom told me that he ran away last night, I wasn't really worried about Lance being hurt or killed.  But I was worried about him "cheating on us" again, and finding a new home.  So I decided we needed to get up some "Missing Cat" signs ASAP.  I printed some out just this evening, put them in plastic sheet protectors, and sent Tom out to post a few around the neighborhood, and along the staircase.

Tom had only been gone about twenty minutes when I got a phone call.  A guy who lives right at the bottom of the stairs had seen my sign, and told me that he HAD LANCE!

So get this: within minutes of Lance running away  last night, he had run up to this guy and his girlfriend who were sitting  at the bottom of the stairs.  They saw that he seemed scared, so took him inside.  That's why Tom couldn't find him last night or today!  And then this evening, within minutes of Tom posting a sign right at the bottom of the stairs, the guy had gone outside again (to smoke a cigarette), seen the sign, and called me.  How crazy!  And I'm especially grateful that I made such haste with the signs, because he told me he was planning to take Lance to the Animal Rescue place TOMORROW!!

Tom went back down to pick up our little runaway (Man, my husband's been doing a lot of favors for me in this story - I need to thank him!).  I gave Lance a big hug, and of course a gentle admonishment about wanting to find a new family again.  It's good to have him back.