A little feline persuasion

"Stupid cat," I thought to myself as I walked to my truck on Tuesday morning. I climbed in and drove to work not giving the stray cat another thought. Sometime during the evening I called home to talk to my wife. "Elizabeth has something she wants to ask you," Mary said. I could tell from the tone of her voice that it was something that they were worried about asking me. "Daddy, there's a sweet little kitty outside our house, can we keep it?"

Let me pause right here and just say that I have always loathed cats. I'm a dog guy. Cats are just weird. They don't do anything you say and their always walking on your vehicles and leaving those stupid paw prints across the hood and windshield. They pee and poop around the bushes and make things stink. They get mad at you and seek revenge. They are complete opposites of dogs.

So, getting back to the cat... My daughters have always bugged me about getting a cat but I've resisted. I suppose I was in a good mood at the time and I agreed we could keep the cat. They immediately named the cat "Sandy," because of it's sand colored fur. I'll go ahead and admit that I thought the cat was pretty cool for a cat, and besides, it might just catch mice and lizards.

Elizabeth fell in love with Sandy. She fed her and watered her and petted her for as long as we would allow. Mary took the pictures on this post, through the front storm door as Liz sat on the porch and held her. "Daddy, we need to bring her in the house," Liz said. "No way!" was my reply. "We are not having any animals in the house...period!" "Well, can we at least buy her a collar?" "I reckon we can do that," I told her.

This morning when I walked out the front door, I noticed that Sandy wasn't anywhere around. As I drove up the road on the way to work, I looked in all of the yards in my neighborhood. I didn't see her anywhere. Tonight when I came home, still no Sandy. I walked in the house and could hear Elizabeth in the bathtub singing, "Sandy, Sandy, Sandy, oh Sandy, Sandy, Sandy." I asked my wife if Sandy had shown up. "Nope, and Liz has been crying ever since she came home from school and the cat wasn't here." I couldn't help but feel sad for Liz. She has always been a little scared of animals. This was the first time she has took up with anything like this. I promised her tonight that if Sandy didn't come back, we would buy her a new cat. She seemed to be alright with that.

For all I know, Sandy belongs to one of my neighbors. She could very well be a stray or a drop off but either way she's not here now. I hope we wake up in the morning and she's sitting on the front porch like she had been for the past 2 days. Meanwhile, Liz is walking around clutching a stuffed kitty cat and calling it Sandy.