Selected Pages From The Diary of an Indoor Cat

For the introduction, perhaps a bit about my background (THE cat) is in order. I am a shorthaired black-and-white house cat (not one of those low class barn cats) with a pattern design called, I believe, tuxedo. The household I started life in treated me kindly, fed me well, and admonished me to never, never go outside. Being, I suppose, a fairly normal house cat, I would dart out at any opportunity. One day during a lot of activity, with many people coming and going about the house, I didn’t have to dart out, I just wandered out, and since no one seemed to notice, I thought I would do a little neighborhood exploring. I didn’t pay much attention to the time, and late in the day I thought I could hear some “here kitty, here kitty” calls. Even though some of them began to sound a bit frantic, as cats are prone to do, I paid no attention. It was a hot day and eventually I began to think a nice saucer of milk would hit the spot. So back to the house I went and did some scratching on the screen door. This should have led to a quick opening of the door and a “wherever have you been” comment. But this time, nothing. No worry, the lady of the house has likely just gone to the grocery store and the man of the house is still at work. I was sort of tired from all of my explorations and curled up at the back door and went to sleep. When I awoke it was dark and there was no light on in the house. Whoops! The next morning there was still no sign of anyone in the house. Over the next few days I found out the activity had been the movers taking the furniture out of the house, and the frantic “kitty” calls I faintly heard and ignored were just before the man and lady of the house drove off to their new home. Thus began my few months as an alley cat.