Unpredictable--those cats

More on our ongoing and everlasting cat drama.

I’ve spent considerable time on two activities—keeping one cat, Douglas, out, and keeping one cat, Ginger, in.  More than once I thought why fight it? I’m only making all three of us unhappy. Just open the door and see what happens. But no, I didn’t.

            Until one day last week, oops. I didn’t do it on purpose. I brought in the mail and got so busy looking at that I didn’t notice I left the front door wide open. Oh, no!

            Oh, yes! No Ginger! I went through the house rattling a bowl of cat food—my never-fail way of calling Ging. Nothing. Then I went outside.

            “Here, Ginger.”

            “Here, Ginger.”

            Douglas came. Ginger didn’t.

Happy (sort of) to be home.

            I confessed to Bob. “I left the door open, Ginger is gone.”

            He consoled me and predicted Ginger would be back in 30 minutes. The minutes came and went. No Ginger. We had to run an errand that took a couple of hours. I tried not to think about Ginger.

            When we pulled up who do think was sitting on the porch, complaining about the door being shut. That’s right. Since then there hasn’t been nearly so much door sniffing and meowing—from the inside.

Easter Morning nap on the porch.

            But Douglas has taken up steady residence on the front porch. He likes breakfast early then a nap. Sometimes Mac and Arthur come. Sometimes not. Last night, we heard Douglas’s good-night meow. Suddenly Bob mellowed. Was it the Easter spirit?

            “Let’s let Douglas in,” says old not-in-my-lifetime Bob.

            Now it’s, “Here, Douglas.”

            There is no figuring out cats. After months of begging and sticking his nose in the door, Douglas declined. So back to where we started. We have an inside cat and an outside cat, by their own choices. I’ve quit worrying about it.