I keep my new cat, El Guapo Picard Tutankhamen, under tight house restriction. Here he eyes the warden from his cell.
Today just a few quick thoughts on the true nature of the Universe. Even though it pains me to be the one to break the news. Yeah, right.
One day, years ago, my wife went to the mall. She asked if I wanted anything and I said, “Yeah. Get me one of those crispy bean burrito dealios.” They weren’t available in our town.
When she came back she was sporting a rather large box. I said, “Wow. That’s a lot of burritos.”
She opened the box and I was rather startled when a cat leaped out. Surprise!
My wife had just broken every rule in the book, but it all worked out. That cat and I would go on to become soul mates. Cammy was her name and she was already a few years old, but I ended up just calling her Kitter. Not to sound like Forrest Gump or anything but we took to each other like peas and carrots.
A few years later she didn’t come home one night and that was very unusual. We had moved six months earlier into suburban sprawl. The next morning I was frantic. I made flyers and went door to door.
I also used a bit of scotch tape to put her fliers on the neighborhood mailboxes. These are units provided by the USPS that contain about 10 boxes rather than each house having its own. I figured these would be perfect locations for my flyers since all the neighbors would see.
That same day, however, when I came home from work, all of the flyers had been ripped down. I say “ripped” because, on closer inspection, there were four jagged little pieces of paper in all four corners that had been left behind, still held tight by tape.
I imagined that someone – and with extremely prejudice – had pawed those fuckers down with a distinct lack of empathy. How easy was it for them, I wondered, to tear down the hopes, dreams and pain of some other human being?
The rest of the mailboxes had been similarly defiled, so I can only assume it was an overly-zealous postal worker enforcing some arcane regulation. Take that!
So, presumably, sometime between 9am and noon (plus/minus 10 hours to allow for postal precision) my kitty cat flyers had come down. Elapsed time: Estimated to be approximately a few hours.
Present Day
I noticed a few weeks ago a flyer go up on the neighborhood mailbox.
Yep, you guessed it. Some little dog has gone missing. And, yep, the flyer has remained up, untouched and unmolested, for weeks so far.
That’s about it. Let’s recap how the Universe works, shall we?
My cat: A few measly hours.
Some dog: A few weeks and counting…
Shouts from the Abyss 
Postal workers are becoming much more lenient since their pay cuts… they don’t have time to rip down flyers because they have twice as much to do in half the time. I like to believe that is why they are so angry when I go and ask for stamps 😦
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I obviously suspected the postal worker but I have no proof. It could have been a sub or they may be someone new on the route by now. It may have been a persnickety neighbor. Or perhaps one of my karma enemies who was out to kill me at the time. Who knows?
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Wait — did Kitter ever come back?
We sometimes see the lost cat/lost dog (and once lost bird) flyers on our communal mailboxes. I don’t think anyone’s torn them down — certainly not right after they go up. I’d like to think that the people that put them up took them down when either: a) they’re pet came back or b) they gave up the search. Sadly, my guess is that lost pets in our neighborhood usually end up taken by coyotes.
Welcome to EGPT!
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The point of the story is that only when it’s me does the universe reach out and smite down my signs – and in a ridiculously short period of time. They were literally down within a few hours. I did not exaggerate.
I always take note of the signs just in case the opportunity will come to help out. Call me a sap.
No, Kitter did not come back. That was the last we ever saw of her. 😦
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The overworked postal worker explanation makes sense I guess, but I can’t help but feel the weird favoritism people have for dogs over cats played a role. I’ve got nothing against dogs, other than their sloppy, embarrassing, master’s-ass-kissing behavior. Their apparent independence makes cats appear much more dignified by comparison.
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Even I failed to suspect human psychology in this case. Perhaps you are on to something there. Some in my area tend to think of cats like rodents or pests. Before writing this post I did a google image search for “missing cat.” A couple of the sign images were disturbing. There may very well be a bias against cats.
It would be sad if that sort of bias explained what happened to my signs.
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I hate how people seem to think dogs are so much more loving or better than cats. My cat greets me every day when I come home, and she curls up with me at night or when I’m upset. When my roommate is upset, her dog runs and cuddles with me because he can’t handle her crying. Hmph.
Did you find Kitters?
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You know, now that I think about it, most of the people that visit my home are very anti-cat. They’re like, “Are you going to put those things in the other room?” and “This cat is still bothering me!”
On the Super Bowl we had a two people over to visit and they were cat people. It was so nice not to not only have guests acting respectfully but also giving the cats some actual love.
The thing that struck me about it was how weird it felt. People were actually being nice to our family members. Wow.
And no, even though I went door to door, we never saw Kitter again.
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You’re the first (and only) person I know where the saying, “it’s all about me” fits. Like a glove. 😉
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