A cat poked its head from beneath the sofa, looked at me and retreated. I was sitting in my big leather “old man” chair, watching TV. Perhaps my quietness gave the cat the courage to venture out. Since neither I nor my roommate daughter have a cat, I was surprised. My daughter was at work, so I called her mother. “Did Lauren get a cat while I was gone,” I asked her. “No! Lauren hates cats,” she said.
I sent a text to my daughter, using the possessive “your.” Lauren repeated her mother’s assessment of her feelings about cats and wrote that she doesn’t know how it got in the house. I called a “catspert” — an expert on cats — but she was unavailable. I spoke to the second team, who gave me suggestions on how to get the cat from beneath the sofa and out of the house. I had already closed all the interior doors so that the cat’s roaming area was limited to the living room, kitchen, and hallway.
My previous domain had a visiting cat (see “The Cat Below,” The Weekly View, July 16th, 2015) who would bogart his way into my apartment and explore it. He made no demands of me other than that I let him enter. As my youngest granddaughter would say, “He didn’t bite or scratch” and I let him wander where he would. But I have no pets at my current quarters (excluding Goldilocks, the Beta fish) which is why it was such a shock to see a cat peeking out from beneath the sofa. It was such a bizarre and unexpected event that I spent many fascinated moments aiming a flashlight’s beam into the yellow eyes of the cat, who seemed to be quite comfortable beneath the sofa. It was stretched out along the baseboard and merely returned my stare. The flashlight made its eyes glow but did not disturb him. Or her. Not sure which it was. Think I’ll stay with “it.”
My “catsultant” suggested that I raise one end of the sofa and try a gentle leg sweep to encourage the cat to leave. I left the front door ajar and propped open the screen door and approached the end of the behemoth. Unlike the petite futon that served my seating needs at my old apartment, this sofa is seven feet long and 4 ½ feet wide. It has two great pillows across the back and two plump cushions. I estimated its weight at about 7 thousand pounds, which presented a problem in the “raise one end” eviction scenario. I grabbed an overstuffed arm and shifted one end of the sofa away from the wall. The cat gave me a languid look and retreated under the sofa. After fixing its position, I decided to get a broom to help in the removal.
I don’t see many stray cats in my neighborhood; occasionally I will see one slink by in a neighbor’s yard. Sofa cat probably got into the house during some activity that required a door to be propped open. When I was able to encourage it to leave its temporary home, it ignored the open door 10 feet away and fled through the kitchen toward the back door. I tried to contain it, but it evaded me, scrambled through the kitchen, into the living room and out the open front door.
Perhaps curiosity brought it into our house, but I hope that it has a home. I enjoy watching birds, and outdoor cats kill billions of birds each year in the United States. Fly away home, sofa cat.
cjon3acd@att.net