Ben

After I told Sean that I want a tattoo of Katzu (my old cat) all over my upper arm, like a sleeve, he suggested that maybe we should just get a couple of kittens.

And so, the very next evening we were the proud owners of a 6-month old oci-cat. Beautiful, silver-chocolate color, and with spots. He was a little shy, but he started exploring the apartment with great alacrity.

His previous owners came over to drop him off, two spunky Brooklyn-Russian girls in their twenties, one of them a student at Hunter, like me. They talked so much and so excitingly about the cat that neither Sean nor I could make any sense of what was being said. Except the thing about allergies, or something. Anywho, the kitten was cute and the Russian chicks liked us, so they left him here with us and said goodbye to their little boy.

Sean and I decided to let the kitten get comfortable on his own so I went out for drinks with my friend Jeannine while Sean stayed at home on the couch.

*** Here's where the drama begins ***
As I leave the bar a couple of hours later I see that I have 9 missed calls, and a text message. The text message is from Sean - "come back cat missing" Shiiiiiit!! I run home, Sean's not home but I see two huge flashlights on the table. I call Sean.

Me: "What happened???"
Sean: "He must have run out through that hole next to the air conditioner, I bought flashlights, go look for him outside!"
Me: "I'm already out looking, where are you?"
Sean: "I'm at Kinko's printing out 'missing' signs, I can't believe this."
Me: "Oh God, what are we going to do... I'll call Viveka to have her help us too."
Sean: "Ok, I'll be back soon also."

***The Chase***
I walk towards the deli on Dekalb so that I can ask the deli guys if they've seen a scared cat run by, and then..... on the other side of the street, next to the big tree, there he is!! He's just sitting there. I approach him slowly. He starts walking around the tree and into a little hole in the tree. We make eye contact. I reach my hand out to grab him... and off he goes, running at gepard speed down Dekalb. I dart after him in my flip-flops - the fastest I've ever run in any type of shoes - flipflopflipflopflipflopflipflop. A man sees us run by and he shouts "It ran into the park over there!!" I yell back "Thanks!" and duck into the park as well. At this point I can't see kitty anymore. I'm going through bushes and wild life. No cat. It's dark out and I'm hoping his eyes will reveal him if I hit them with the beam of my flashlight.

***The Capture***
I see Viveka and Sean entering the park, carrying flashlights, from the northeast corner. Back-up has arrived. We're combing through the area as if we're looking for a dead body in the Midwest.

What if we can't find him? What if we can't catch him? He runs so fast. And what will we tell the spunky Russians when they call to see how he's doing? We will have to lie. No way we can tell them we lost him.

"I GOT HIM!!!" Sean yells from the big lawn. He had thrown the flashlight to the ground as he made the capture and Viveka was running towards him. I only see their silhouettes in the dark - Sean with something in his arms and Viveka picking up the flashlight. I start running back to our apartment - "I'm gonna make sure everything is closed and safe!!!" I yell, flipflopflipflopflipflop.

***Great Relief***
The poor kitten is scared and looks traumatized, he's hiding in the corner by the bookshelf. "Poor little guy, it will probably take him some time to calm down." We put water, food and cat candy next to him. Maybe this will make him feel more at home.
Me: "I can't believe we caught him, what are the chances????"
Sean: "I need a glass of whiskey."
Me: "I'm sooooo relieved..!"
Sean, exhaling: "Me too..."

***The Twist***
We're sitting on the couch in complete post-trauma-whiskey mode, discussing what had just gone down. And how lucky we are in the end. Viveka insists that our new kitten looks like her cat a lot, and we remind her that our kitty is a pure breed an oci-cat, and hers is not.
Sean says he's ready to hit the sack "what a stressful evening, and I spent $40 at Kinko's for nothing."

I say, "maybe I should double check all the windows again...." and I pull back the curtain to give the window a push and a shake. There's kitty resting and stretching comfortably behind the curtain.

Me: "When did he move over here?"
Viveka: "What do you mean? He's still over here."
Me: "No, he's not, he's right here, look!"

Kitty jumps down from his spot on the window sill behind the curtain and walks over to the traumatized kitty by the book case. The cats start sniffing each other.

This is when we realize we've made a huge mistake. Why are there two cats in our apartment??

***And in the end...***
Well, turns out that our cat had never escaped at all. He had been in our apartment the whole time. Meanwhile, we spent hours in the dark park looking for him and at Kinko's, printing out signs.

But what's even worse, we had abducted some random cat from the park. Who was this little guy? We let this fellow back out, he probably lives with some of our neighbors. (Note: For those of you who are concerned about the abducted cat, he does live with a neighbor)

We named our cute pure-breed Bentley.