Elusive kitty

Oh damn, I thought on my pigeon-toed walk down the catwalk toward my apartment that Monday evening, if only I didn’t need to empty the dishwasher and fold the towels and do the whites and walk the dog and feed the kitties and talk to the bird and empty the wastebaskets and water the plants and balance my checkbook and pay the mid-month bills. All I wanted to do was beat off and watch an episode of “Bewitched.”

Well, nothing to be done about it. Why couldn’t Marty be home to help with the chores? Every time we get backed up, he goes to some family function in Modesto with that whiny uncle with the tattoo of a Playboy bunny on his right forearm.

When I opened the door, I called out for the pets. “Lucy, Dottie, Pumpkin – Daddy’s home.”

Lucy and Dottie came running, but of course. The dog always arrived first, wagging her sheltie tail and licking my nose, followed close behind by the kitty. She’s not a kitty anymore, I have to remind myself – she’s two years old, a full-grown cat. Meow, she purrs on her way to rubbing my shins. But where was Pumpkin, the little kitty?

“Oh, Pumpkin, you-hoo …”

I sighed, exasperated. He liked to hide, never came when I walked in the door. I put my backpack on the counter, dropped the water bottle in the sink, put the coffee mug in the dishwasher – damn, I have to empty it first, take it out right now before you forget, I thought. All those chores! I’d forgotten about the damned chores when Lucy licked my nose.. And Marty … wish he were here instead of Modesto.

So I scouted the apartment for Pumpkin. Pumpkin, come out from wherever you are, Pumpkin, I’m home, Pumpkin, I’ve got a tuna treat for you – you name it, I said whatever I could to entice the kitty. But no kitty. I sighed again, even more exasperated, and opened the closet door. No kitty. Other closets, the laundry perhaps? Nope, nada. My heart started to race, where could little Pumpkin be? I looked out on the balcony. But, horrors – what if Marty’d let him out and he’d jumped off the ledge when a bird flew by? Whew, I checked … no dead cats below the balcony.

“Marty,” I said as soon as he picked up my call to his cell, “where’s Pumpkin?”

“I don’t know,” he said, that annoying plaintive sound in his voice, “he was in the bedroom when I was packing. You must’ve let him out.”

I figured it out, even if he hadn’t. “Never mind, pizza brains. You want to open your suitcase now?”

Five interminable minutes later, he came back. “Honey,” Marty said, “you’ll never guess where I found Pumpkin.”

“Try me.”