I Should Have Known

That something odd was up last night.

I'm watching TV last night (yay! new shows on!) and Mimi is hanging out in the kitchen by the cat door into the garage but she is acting a little off, kind of hunched down and keeping an eye on the cat door. I just thought maybe Buddy was in there and was being his usual ornery self and proceeded to continue watching TV. I went out front a few times and didn't see Lucy who usually is waiting on the porch for her midnight snack. We have been having major problems with her food getting eaten by the cats from next door so I have to feed her, bring the leftovers in, feed her again, bring the leftovers in, and so on. She always wants something to eat late in the evening. But she wasn't there and she wasn't in the tree and oh hey, maybe she ran away from home.

Anyway, I go off to bed and don't think too much more about Lucy or Mimi or any of the rest of them, I just want to go to sleep. This morning I get up to feed everyone and here is Harri out in the garage staring at me through the cat door that she refuses to go through, so I open the door but she won't come out. There is a bowl of food in the garage so I figure that Keith fed her before leaving for work and maybe Buddy is being mean again and she doesn't want to come out of the garage. Poor Buddy, he always gets blamed, but there is a reason for that.

So, I'm busy cleaning the house and bathrooms and doing laundry and packing some orders and keep checking on Harri and opening the door in case she wants to come out now, but no, she comes as far as the door and no further. I get the cat box from in the bedroom and put it in the garage because I know she must be desperate to pee by now if she hasn't found a spot in the garage and already done so, give her some water, and I guess I'll just let her calm down and come out when she is ready.

Then Keith calls and explains why Harri is so freaked out. At 3 am he hears weird cat distress noises and banging around and here is Lucy in the workroom under the workbench with three cats at the bedroom door all making that horrible keening noise that scared upset cats make, and Harri is on top of the cat tower cowering in fear and afraid to move. Keith is all what the hell and gets all the cats rounded up and put into the garage so he can get Lucy out of the house, Lucy who must have been in the garage earlier in the evening when he had the roll up door open, Lucy who got shut in the garage when he rolled down the door, Lucy who had been hiding out in the garage and then decided to come on in the house, Lucy who hates all the other cats. That explains why Mimi was acting so weird by the garage door. He tries to pet Lucy and she is snarling and scratching so he opens the front door and chases her out with the squirt bottle and then lets the other cats out of the garage, all except Harri who just absolutely won't come out.

It was almost time for him to get up anyway by then, so he just stayed up and then went off to work. I obviously slept right through all the drama.

So, moral of the story is if I don't see Lucy on the front porch at night then I'd better go check the garage.