The Mystery of the Missing Smitty Cat

Before I go on, I should state right up front that this story has a happy ending.  It's okay to read on, and you can stop biting your nails right now.

Tonight I started making dinner, and in keeping with our routine, Mike started rounding up Smitty and Gracie to give them their dinner.  Gracie, whose palate can be purrsnickety, came right away.  Smitty, who always comes right away, was nowhere to be found.  His kitty door was open, and it was already dark.  Mike called him, rattled his treat bag, clanked his dinner dishes together, etc., in an effort to get Smitty to come in.  Ordinarily, that would do the trick.  Unless he has a mouse in his clutches, that is.  We assumed that was it.

Make that "mouse corpse".  This image really has nothing to do with the story, but the title was so perfect, I couldn't resist.

So we put down Gracie's dinner, and she promptly turned up her nose at it.  This is also part of our routine.  Then, Mike got out the flashlight and went outside in search of glowing green cat eyes.

There were none.  

Okay, so now we were both getting worried, but not unduly so.  I continued to make dinner while Mike went around checking closets and closed off rooms to see if Smitty had gotten locked in somewhere.  Nothing.

Finally, we sat down to dinner, discussing whether Smitty was truly missing and what might have happened to him.  It seemed unlikely that a predator had gotten him because Mike was outside making a lot of noise earlier.  We talked about whether a bird of prey could pick up a nearly full-grown cat, and we decided that too was unlikely.  Both of us were feeling more uneasy, but we tried to put those feelings aside and enjoy our dinner.  Nevertheless, we were both deep in thought considering the possibility that Smitty might be gone.  In particular, I was considering how awful it was going to be to tell all of you that our little Smitty cat had disappeared.

Then, we heard the distinctive ka-thunk sound of Smitty blasting through the kitty door.  We didn't see him, and assumed he was eating his dinner, which is stationed very close to the cat door.  Mike walked back to check, but still no Smitty.  We finished dinner, cleaned up, read some email, and by this time Smitty had been missing for over an hour.  Very unusual, even for him.  Finally, unable to stand it any longer, I announced that I was going to make one last round inside the house, open all the doors just to be sure, and then I was going to take an extended walk around the property to see if I could find him.

With that, I walked downstairs, and what do you suppose I saw?

Who knows how long he'd been there, but this intent stare at the spot where the piano sits against the wall can only mean one thing:  Mousies.  I moved the piano light so that it shown behind the piano, and sure enough.

Oy.  After worrying sick about Smitty for going on two hours, I didn't know whether to kiss him or kill him.  I ended up kissing him.  But that still left the matter of the little mouse.  We ended up putting Smitty in the bathroom while we captured the mouse.  Then we liberated the mouse to the outdoors.  I imagine that flustered Smitty, but such is the life of a cat at the Three Cats Ranch.

And as long as I'm here, I might as well show you the block I made for the Block Lotto.  I imagine Smitty was hunting for mousies while I made it.

After such a harrowing story, you needed the humdrum of a single quilt block, didn't you?