Sometime on Monday June 24th, our cat Fergus accidentally got outside without us realizing it until the next day. He usually runs into the garage every time someone opens the side door from the house, as he loves to flip around on the floor out there and wander around the piles of stuff. Well, apparently he ran out there at some point on Monday when the big garage door was open and he got stuck outside. Because my parents were visiting and he is skittish around strangers, he'd been doing a lot of hiding since their arrival. But he did not sleep on my bed Monday night like he usually does, and on Tuesday morning when he didn't come down for breakfast, I started to get concerned. I began searching every room of the house and the garage and storage closets. Then I searched every single conceivable place that he could be a few times again, and came to the awful conclusion that he was not in the house. I noticed that Dougal was acting funny, too. These guys were found roughing it together on Chesapeake Beach in Maryland when they were just a couple of weeks old, and they had never been apart before. That was the main reason I adopted two cats last July- I couldn't bear the thought of separating these inseparable brothers!
By Tuesday night, I was extremely upset and I had to let the boys know what was going on, and all 3 of us cried together. It was really awful. I walked around the neighborhood for over an hour in 90+ degree heat, calling for Fergie and shaking a little container of cat food. I also put up flyers on all the communal mailboxes in the neighborhood and asked every single person I saw if they'd seen an orange tabby cat.
I had an awful time getting to sleep on Tuesday night and finally dozed off some time around 1:30 am. Then a little after 3 am, I shot up suddenly in bed, realizing that I'd just dreamed that Fergie had come home and was yowling outside the front door and peeking into one of the skinny windows beside the door. I felt so sad and defeated, knowing that it was just a dream, and I lay back down and tried to get back to sleep. But then it occurred to me that maybe I should go check the front door, just in case. One of my friends had suggested earlier that day that I put his food and water bowls outside by the door as he might actually smell his way back home if he was lost. So just as I was starting to get out of bed to go downstairs, I heard the front door open! My Dad, who was sleeping in Tom's den, was woken up by Fergie, who was in fact YOWLING AT THE FRONT DOOR AND PEEKING IN THE GLASS SIDE WINDOW! (So strange!) Dougal and I both leapt out of bed at the sound of the door opening and by the time we got to the baby gate at the top of the stairs, we found Fergus standing on the other side of it. He apparently flew in the front door and bolted up the stairs to find us!
There are just no words to describe how happy and relieved I was to see his little silly, furry face again. Dougal was so happy, too, and the two of them kept licking each other!
And now the brothers are inseparable again! I am now a FANATIC about making sure I know where the cats are before opening the outer garage door or going out the front door because I never want that to happen again!!
