The Prodigal Cat

A late start to this post after attending a site visit in a construction defect case along with twenty-four other folks. Paid to be bored.

Yesterday was a little more exciting, as I realized around the time I was leaving for the office that Dean wasn't in the condo. Dio had arrived from NY the night before, after we went to bed, and he didn't recall seeing Dean upon his arrival. Peg was at work by the time he'd gone missing, and peppered me with texts suggesting places to go look for him. I ascended and descended both stairwells a couple times. I walked each floor. I peered through the iron fence into the condo's backyard, making a pathetic attempt to imitate Peg's "here kitty kitty kitty" in the hope that he'd emerge from wherever he was hiding. None of my efforts yielded a cat.

Most concerning about the situation was the fact that Dean's collar sports an airtag, which tells us where he is at any time so long as there's cell coverage.

Here's an image of what my phone is telling me right now about the location of the two amigos.

Yesterday Dean's airtag went silent at 4:31 a.m. Peg's imagination ran wild with the possible causes. Was he carried off by an osprey? Had he found shelter in someone's cinder block house that might block cell coverage? Did he fall into the bay and short out the battery?

Peg's friends in the building searched for Dean in the blustery rain while we were at work, but came up empty. Peg's car has tire issues, so I had to pick her up from work. All conversation on the way back home was about Dean's mysterious disappearance.

When we pulled into the parking lot, P jumped out into the drizzle and walked over to the fence by the side yard, loudly doing a much more welcoming "kitty kitty" than I could pull off. Suddenly we heard a very sad cat bellowing for its Mama. Dean emerged from under a car, crying like a baby. Peg scooped him up into her arms, hugging and chastising him in that maternal way she does. We were both truly relieved.

How did he escape? A mystery. Our best guess is that he slipped out when someone opened a sliding glass door, then slipped off the wet balcony rail and fell three floors. He's done it before, having little balance and zero depth perception. What went wrong with the airtag? We still have no clue. The battery checked out, and in fact my phone could see his location from the time he emerged. We changed the battery anyway, and gave them both a big bowl of smelly cat food to celebrate the prodigal's return.