Phantom kitty part II: the Jolly Roger

So the tuna disappeared. Turns out I did have a beast of some sort in my garage and it wasn’t just in my head. I tried to put more tuna out and called out “here kitty kitty kitty” to see if I could get it to come out, but all was quiet and I couldn’t find the kitty anywhere. I opened my garage door and rattled all my boxes. Nothing. Before going to work, I listened for the kitty. Nothing. I had named it “phantom kitty Roger” because I could never find it, and used roger as a play-off of gaRAGE. I turned my car on and backed out, and then there it was again. Very loud yeowling, but where was it coming from?

I stopped, turned the car off, and proceeded to pull out and flip over every box in my garage. The meowing stopped. I could not find the phantom kitty. The meowing started again, and it was not coming from the boxes in my garage. It sounded like it was just outside of my garage. I walked to my car and it got louder. I popped my hood and at first couldn’t see anything, but then there it was. A little gray kitten, laying on top of my engine looking at me like, “you’re not my mother!”

I proceeded to scold Roger and told him to get out, I had to go to work. He didn’t listen. I shooed him with my hand and after a couple tries, he finally scurried down and took off like a sonic the hedgehog blur yeowling the whole way. Not sure where he went, but the meows got quieter and quieter. Perhaps he found another garage to crash in. I figure it must have been one of the stray wild kittens we have around the hospital that crawled in my car while I was at work Monday night, that went for a fun ride, since I never leave my garage door open.

It dawned on me as I was driving to work that I had named the kitty Roger, because it lived in my garage, and I found it in my car that I named Jolly. They made a perfect pair.

Phantom kitty

I feel like I’m losing my mind. Maybe I’m still asleep and it’s a dream. Yesterday morning when I got home from work as soon as I shut my car door in my garage I heard a blood curdling squeal. What WAS that? It happened again and it sounded like a cat that was trying to die, but not without first letting the world know it was angry about it. I stepped out of my garage and looked around. I couldn’t see anything. The meows (if you could call them meows) stopped and I went inside.

It happened again when I got home from work this morning. It sounded so close. Again I stepped outside, looked around. Couldn’t see anything. I wondered if my neighbor had moved out and left a cat in her garage, but that didn’t make sense because she moved more than a month ago and I would have heard something before now. The meows stopped and I went inside to go to sleep.

I woke up a couple hours early and remembered I had laundry I wanted to put in my dryer so my plan was to transfer my wet laundry and go back to sleep. I turned on the light in my garage where my washer and dryer are, opened the door and as soon as I did: Boom. MEOOW! MEOOW! What the heck little kitty? Where ARE you? I have several boxes, both empty and full along the wall of my garage. I thought I saw something dark move further between some of them. I walked to where I thought the sound was louder (it was so hard to tell where it was coming from!) and pulled a top box off, then scooted another. The meowing stopped and a blur of darkness darted past me. It moved too fast for me to even see a shape or distinct color, but it was a smaller blur and faster (could hardly see it!) than I thought a full grown cat should have been. I moved to the other side of my car to see if it was cowering in the opposite corner, but couldn’t see anything. I looked under my car and couldn’t see anything. Where did it GO? No more meows.

I transferred my laundry and thought it was all in my head, went inside and thought, but what if it isn’t? Then I felt bad for poor phantom kitty because it’s hot in my garage and if it’s been there since yesterday he’s probably hungry and dehydrated. I considered opening my garage door to see if something would run out, but then I wanted to know for sure if I really did have a cat in there or if I was actually going insane. I got a small bowl of water and another dish of canned tuna and put them on the floor of the garage.

I’ve checked twice now, and so far I’m a crazy cat lady, only a real crazy cat lady since I might be feeding an imaginary cat.  I guess I’ll try to go back to sleep for a while before work tonight and see if the tuna is gone later, but I’m afraid the excitement has robbed me of the full “days” rest I was hoping for.

Update: the tuna disappeared, but I couldn't find the phantom kitty and it wouldn't run out when I opened the garage door. I'll have to find a way to get it out tomorrow.