Life on the Road

CAUTION: This is a sad story, and in some ways has no direct bearing on our life.  I don’t follow the news because I don’t want to hear all the sad, depressing stuff they feel like they want to share with me.  So I won’t be offended if you don’t want to read this, and I hope to get what I need out of the very act of writing it down…

As you may recall from a week and a half ago, our four kitty-babies were rescued from under the other house on this property during the pre-inspection process for tenting and fumigation (read it here).  This week, our landlords are fumigating the buildings on their other property down the street.

Wolf was next door grilling burgers for dinner Thursday night (we don’t have a grill set up yet), and came home with the neighbor in his van hot on his heels.  He handed me the plate of burgers and said they were going over to the other property, because there were cats trapped in the - tented - barn.

I looked at the clock in horror.  It was almost 8pm, and the fumigation had been done around 4.

Pregnancy, I’m sure, does not help these kinds of situations.  I don’t need worry and drama, I need peace and tranquility, you know?

Shortly he came back, looking very sad.  I assumed the cat(s) had died…  The reality turned out to be even worse.

Wolf and H had arrived at the property prepared to enact whatever sort of rescue was needed.  Then H’s wife came roaring up the road, honking her horn, and shouting that they must NOT go in there, the fumigation chemicals were too dangerous, etc.

This got the attention of her parents, who live in another building there, and in fact own the whole kit and caboodle.  They insisted that it was an old cat, and it had already been in there for four hours.  Whatever would happen would happen, and it was not sensible to put anyone at risk over it.

H drove Wolf back here, and he told us the story.

We were really surprised that the exterminators hadn’t managed to find the cat, since they discovered out four babies when they inspected here.  Wolf explained their process - including releasing a tear-gas into the tented house first, to scare out any possible remaining animals - and said that everyone had assumed the cat had gotten out (or was elsewhere to begin with, being an outdoor/barn cat, after all).

It was Nick who said, after contemplating this for a minute, “Then how did they find out the cat was in there now?”

Wolf was quiet for a minute.  This was clearly something he had hoped not to discuss.  “You can hear it crying in there.”

Oh, my…

The first part of the story had already upset me, and Jewel had started asking, “Are you sad, Mama?”  When Wolf said that, I had to excuse myself to the restroom to keep her from being more upset by my reaction.

I know that part of my reaction is just my hormores making everything seem more drastic than it actually is, and I know that not everyone feels the same way about animals as we do (I can hear the choruses of, “it’s just a cat” already)…  But, yuck!  It would be sad to learn after the fact that the cat had died because he had hidden in the house and refused to come out - but to know he was in there, suffering, crying…