Warhead On Legs

Guess what we found again on my evening walkies, after coming home?

If you guessed a pretty gray cat named Shadow, you're right!

He was across the street at the house of a nice young man named J, who said that wasn't his cat and it just turned up, gee. Yesterday. He was a lot less placid today than he was yesterday, but then again, been out all day and all night. Through at least one thunderstorm.

We carried him around the block and, yes, I know I said I was going to keep him if we found him again, but we took him back. Mostly because she was looking at us and talking like we still had her cat. No, bitch, we don't have your cat. You told us to put it on your porch, you stupid goddamn whore, and if you were any kind of a cat Mom you would know that a cat that wandered off once may damn well wander off again.

You didn't even look! He was RIGHT BEHIND YOUR HOUSE. I did a better job looking for his owner than you did looking for where he might have gone!

So, yeah. We brought him back to the idiot. Her kids didn't seem too broken up about the whole thing. She didn't seem ... something. I'm still pissed. I'm going to be pissed about this for a while.

So. Um... I found a cat.

I went out today fully intending to pick up a package from the post office and go to work. I got about halfway down the road leading out from my apartment complex that runs along the park when I realized I was hearing a persistent meowing that wasn't coming from my headphones. And it was a cat.

Well, this wasn't that strange, plenty of people have cats around here and while they usually stay by their houses, some do come out to say hi. So I walked along a little ways, expecting it to eventually peel off and head back home, as cats do. But it didn't. And I reached down to pet it, and it stood on its hind legs and bumped its head against my hand, and... it was a very friendly cat. And I walked a little further, almost down the entire length of the street, to see if it followed me. And it did. And I waited for it to go home. And it didn't.

So I scooped it up into my arms and called the boy to come with the cat carrier. And it just sat there in my arms, calmly, placidly, as though people picked it up before. It had obviously been around humans a lot. Humans who had loved it. It wanted to be petted, it was very friendly, it sat and was held a lot longer than MY cats will let me do. And the only time it freaked out was when cars drove by, leading me to believe it is not used to cars. Clearly, however, it is used to toilets, as it jumped up onto the toilet behind me.

The boy came up with the cat carrier and we put it in, and it stayed there perfectly calmly. Again, more calmly than my own cats! Big Boy freaks out after five seconds in the carrier, this one? Just sat there. Looked around, then curled up and lay down. We went door to door down about 2/3 of the houses on the street, most people didn't answer, one guy said neither he nor his neighbor had a cat, one woman who we stood and talked with for a while looked and said it wasn't hers, she didn't know who it was, but we gave her our phone numbers just in case and discussed cat affairs in the region.

And then we took it to the vet in the hopes that it was microchipped. And it was, so we got that person's contact info and left them a message and now... I'm home. Sitting on the bathroom floor. With a cat that is not mine.

ETA: And we found the owner! Apparently she actually does live along that street. Apparently, also, she's going to be out all day and wants us to just leave the cat on the porch, he's an indoor outdoor kitty and she just moved into the neighborhood and can't keep him inside. I don't... I don't know. I have reservations. I have deep reservations but I can't keep him. He's not mine. So... yeah.