The Great Escape

Flint loves going out on the patio. He will sit at the back door and scratch and cry until you open it and let him out.  Then once he is out there you have to bribe him with treats or drag him back in. Anyway a few weeks ago I was home studying and decided I would let him out to play for a while.  The patio is completely enclosed in a six foot high wooden fence, but I still worry about him somehow getting out or something bigger than him getting in. If the weather is nice I will usually sit outside with him, but it was a chilly day so I pulled up a kitchen chair at the sliding door so I could periodically check on him while I studied.  He kept wandering back and forth and all was well.

After maybe 20 minutes I decided I was tired of sitting on a kitchen chair and went to let him back in.  Ever the optimist I opened the door a crack hoping he was ready to come back in and would just come running. Nope. So I poked my head out to see what he was up to. I couldn't see him. Typical, he's hiding. At this point I will mention that although it was late morning/mid afternoon I was still in my pjs and wearing red fuzzy slippers.  I stepped outside and checked his usual hiding places, under the tarp with our bikes and under the patio chairs. No kitty. I started to panic, but reminded myself he must be here (On 2 previous occasions I've gone into full blown hysteria and run around the neighborhood climbing under cars and knocking on doors looking for my kitty, when he was simply hiding in the house).  I calmed myself enough to run back inside and slip on some real shoes then headed back out.

The patio is maybe a 12 x 24 ft rectangle so there really isn't much room to search. I decided he must be under the tarp wit the bikes and proceeded to just about flip them over tearing everything apart as fast as I could. Still no kitty. Now I was starting to really panic. I jumped up on the fence and started calling his name (in an ever shriller voice). No response.  Our patio backs up to a large wooded area and a pond so I was starting to believe that at this point he was either drowned or in the belly of some prehistoric woodland creature.  I didn't have time to find the key and unlock the gate so I started going over. Uh oh. 29 year old Stephen is considerably pudgier and less mobile than high school Stephen and that 6 foot fence was proving a real challenge.  I finally got up high enough to look over into the neighbors patio and gave a quick scan for the cat. Nothing. Have to get higher. I somehow managed to get the majority of my body weight above the top of the fence and started the uncontrolled roll over towards the other side. Unfortunately there were some nails sticking up, which resulted in a nice little tear in the fanny of my pjs.

I made it over and stood on top of the AC unit screaming Captain Flint and looking all over the place.  Suddenly much to my surprise a little gray head peeks out from under the neighbor's rose bush and looks up at me like "dad what are you doing out there", I was so relieved I could've peed myself. Instead I took on the challenge of scaling another fence. A task that was much easier thanks to my position on the ac unit. I scooped him up and tried to get back over into our yard. No dice. If I struggled to make it over the bare wall by myself there was no way it was gonna happen with a 13 pound cat in one hand. So I unceremoniously dropped him over the top and headed back over via the ac unit. We both made it over and I chased him into the house smacking and shouting. I can only imagine what any neighbors who may have been home thought witnessing this whole fiasco. They say cats have nine lives, but I've just got one and he's taking years off of it.

I see you watching me human