10/6/07

CSI: Feline Unit


10:30PM: The call comes in. Mother-in-law. She's leaving work and hears "meowing" coming from her car. She just loaded the back with laundry from her business and knows it couldn't be in the car itself. That leaves one place - inside the guts of the car. Engine block, wheel well, carborator (can something actually be stuck in a carborator? Did I even spell it correctly?) She'll call back.


10:55PM: She arrives in front of our house. She's as frazzled as I've ever seen her. Sweating, nearly shaking.

Mother-in-law (MOL) "I...I'm just so freaked right now. I feel so bad for this thing. I don't know where it is."

Me: Do you still hear it?

MOL: Not in a while.

Me: Go ahead inside and I'll check it out.


11:00 PM: I've searched the outside of the car with a dimming flashlight and found nothing. I fished around the back hatch, looked under the seats, dashboard, elbow-rest storage compartment....nada. I hear nothing. I see nothing. I know what I've got to do.


Open the hood.


11:03 PM: I can't find the friggin' hood release. I mean, really. How hard could it be? They're usually in the same place on every car.


11:05 PM: I'm sitting in the car, under the dome light reading the manual for a 2006 Nissan Murano, trying to find "Page 3-9" to uncover The Secret of the Hood Release. I haven't drunk nearly enough for this.


11:07 PM: I find the hood release but just before I go to pull it...."Meow." Then again, "Meow." I hear a cat. This isn't a weird car sound or air conditioner making a noise that my mother-in-law interprets as catlike thus getting nervous. This is a cat. 100% positive.


Crap.


11:09 PM: I'm actually shaking a little. Just a little. I'm thinking that once I pop this hood 1 of 2 things will happen:

1.) A cat will spring out.

2.) A dismembered cat will be struggling for its life. I totally can't handle this one.

Then I reason with myself. If this cat were hurt, I'd know it, right? It would be screaming or something. Do cats scream? I would smell hair if it was burnt, right?


11:11PM: I pop the hood. I fish underneath the hood for the 2nd release (for Christ's sake...) and catch it. I slowly open it up from the side and....


NOTHING. I shine my flashlight everywhere I can possibly shine it. I don't hear or see anything. Did it escape? Is it sleeping? Surely the sound of the hood opening and my general incompetence at motor vehicular operational techniques (not to mention my constant "What the...s and "Oh sh*ts") would've awakened the thing.


11:15 PM: I go inside with the news. Rose grabs another flashlight (Vincent's firetruck light) and heads out with me. Same results. She's on the ground deducing that it's probably in the plastic overhang that extends from the bottom of the bumper - a place no flashlight or human can go without the assistance of a mechanic's lift. At this point, we still don't hear the cat. My mother-in-law suggests starting the car.


11:18PM: I start the car. I immediately see my wife nodding her head outside and pointing at the bumper. We both hear it. She hypothesizes that it's warm and comfy and most likely resting in there until awakened by the engine - thus the meowing.


11:25 PM: After 7 minutes of the three of us trying to find an alternative...in the Yellow Pages - All-night automobile cat-removal? Fire department (I quashed this after 1.7 seconds)? SPCA? Father-in-law? My mother-in-law decides to leave the car at our house overnight because she can't drive it home. She'll take it to the dealer in the morning.


To make a long story anticlamactically short, the dealer's 1st service guy refused to put the car on the lift saying he "didn't want to get bitten by some damn cat." The 2nd service guy looked for "the usual fried kitten found in situations like these" but luckily didn't find anything. The little thing probably snuck out in the middle of the night to find a nice comfortable 2008 Escalade to creep into.


Epilogue: Vincent, Peter and I were outside playing this morning and we saw an unfamiliar cat pop into our neighbor's garage. I actually thought I saw the thing wink at me. Oddly enough, it actually whispered across the lawn, "Psst. How hard can it be to find a hood release?"

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Holy Crap, Jim -- only you :)

Very glad that the story did not end with a mangled cat (I almost didn't read on after the first line but thought "Jim wouldn't do that to me!"). Though please mention to Sara that she may want to keep her eyes open for any Missing Cat signs around Kennett in the event her accidental travel companion was someone's outdoor pet.

Anonymous said...

That is freaking hilarious. I could just imagine Aunt Sara. See you in a couple weeks. Soory, bout the Phils, the dig on my blog was towards george.