Our cat, Felix, traveled up north with us for the first time, to visit my parents and their cat, Katie.
I was worried Felix might not like the long drive. My parents’ home, while not enormous, has a basement and an upstairs, all connected by a spiral staircase, and I worried he would become distressed in this new place. There were a lot of new things he could mess with, and I worried he would knock over knickknacks or dig in the plants or hide. So I was anxious from the moment I piled Felix into his carrier.
It turns out, I was worried about all the wrong things.
Felix did not mind the drive at all. He fell asleep in his carrier and was a model passenger. When we arrived at my parents’ house, I carried him in. I could have sworn that Katie was watching as we loaded everything into the house. But apparently not.
Felix immediately began to explore. This was a big house, filled with interesting things, and Felix hit the ground running, so I don’t know the precise order of events. But somehow, Felix ended up in the sunporch that doubles as my mother’s sewing room. He was investigating the sunroom when Katie, belatedly, discovered there was another cat in the house.
She screamed.
You are probably imagining that she meowed very loudly or let out a yowl, but that would not be accurate. Katie screamed as if her little kitty throat was being cut and she was dying—right that moment.
Everyone came running. Katie was puffed up to approximately twice her normal size, and she was staring, riveted, at Felix. Felix looked surprised, but not nearly dangerous enough to have provoked a scream like that.
“They will need some time!” my mother explained. We all assumed the worst was over. Then, several minutes later, Katie returned to the sunporch, and Felix was hiding just around the corner, so she didn’t discover him until she was inches from his face. There was another scream, and this time, she peed on the floor.
My father picked up Katie. My mother mopped the floor. I shooed Felix out of the sunporch. An hour passed, and Katie had almost convinced herself that Felix was gone for good. That’s when he popped up from the basement, his face festooned with cobwebs.
There was a third bloodcurdling scream.
We decided they needed a time-out. There was no door to the upstairs, and so we brought up Katie’s litter box from the basement and confined her to the bedroom and sunporch.
Things were quiet that night. I had gone up to bed. Suddenly, there was another scream.
“Could you come and get your cat?!” my father hollered.
“Where is he?”
I ran downstairs and there was Felix, sitting in the darkened sunporch. There was a glass window in the door to my parents’ bedroom, and he had been peering into the window from the dark. Katie spotted the Night Stalker and, justifiably, freaked out.
“Now you are just being mean!” I told Felix as I took him to bed. I thought he looked pleased with himself.
For the remaining two days, while Katie spent most of her time fuming in my parents’ bedroom, Felix played with Mom and Dad. He was given special treats. He caught a mouse and murdered it in the bathtub. He played with all of Katie’s toys. And every time Katie caught sight of Felix, she screamed.
All in all, it was a wonderful vacation—for Felix.
Till next time,
Carrie
