All's wll that ends well...I guess

Driving back from St. Augustine yesterday, we decided to stop and grab a bite to eat. Usually, when I make this run, I am a drive through type of guy, especially on the way home. I try to beat the traffic by leaving early (we didn't leave early, but traffic was remarkably light for a holiday).

Since we have a friend riding with us (actually we drove her car which was fine by me), we decided to actually go to a sit down restaruant for a meal. Not really a problem.

For some reason, I happen to notice that my cell phone has a voice mail on it. No big deal I think. Maybe my Dad called. I had spoke to him on the drive down and maybe he had something to chat about.

Turns out it was our animal sitter. We usually pay someone to come in on a daily basis whenever we are gone for more than a day to not only look after our two cats Freeway and AJ, but also to make sure their litter box is clean, and that they spend some time playing with them as well.

The woman we have do that has a small daughter and they seem to really enjoy the interaction with "the kids" and also look forward to the treasure that we usually bring back in addition to payment to them as a way of saying thanks.

As usual, I digress.

The voice mail was indeed from the sitter. She just left a very short message saying to call her. Already, I have an uneasy feeling. And the weekend had been so nice up to that point. As I get her on the phone, she informs me that she hasn't seen AJ all weekend. Not Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. She fears he may have gotten out of the house.

In her voice and mannerisms, I know she is a little bit freaked and very defensive. She asks if we are sure the cats were in the house when we left. A few trips back, while improbable, it may have happened. But for a variety of reasons, we now do a "head count" even when we close closet doors. Julie and I both remember telling them (as well as any human can talk to a cat) to be good and that we would be back on Monday. We left the house through the door to the garage and they were both in the kitchen.

Now, I am feeling betwixt and between. I know Julie is going to freak out if I tell her. Inwardly, I think that AJ is indeed in the house. He is a good hider when he wants to be and I have had trouble finding him myself at times. On the other hand, if I don't tell her and something is truly wrong, she will have every right to be fuming. I opt to tell her. She questions my questioning of the sitter, which I get a little frustrated with. After all, we are 4 hours of driving away and questioning the sitter is not going to help the situation in my mind at this time.

My thought process on that was if she waited 3 days to let me know there was a problem involving the cats, what could/would she do at this point. No, I said to myself...just have faith that all is well and drive like hell to get there quickly.

And we did. We pulled into the garage, agreed to immediately look for AJ before onloading and found him within one minute. Then Julie burst into tears. She still takes the former cat's Artemus ("the best kitty in the whole world") passing hard. The tears are as much a stress relief as they are reliving that time of losing him the way we did.

So, with everyone safe at home and accounted for, we unpacked and pondered about moving to St. Augustine again.

TTFN.226