The Tale of the Cats

Our neighborhood, like most neighborhoods in America, has its share of stray animals that spend most of their time here. For the last several months, we've known about two stray cats that live in the area--I named them Kittenface and Meowdude. We can sometimes see them slinking into the drainage culvert across the street or dashing down the gutters in the darkness. My wife, of course, has a soft spot in her heart for cats, and there have been many occasions in which we've spotted one or both of these cats, out there in the cold, and she's asked me if we could please bring them in and take care of them. (I think she's maybe 30% joking.) No, I don't think she asked our cat what she would think about a couple of friends, either.

Of course we don't do that--feral cats wouldn't even let either of us get close enough to them to pet them, let alone bring them inside, or adopt them. Not to mention what our cat would think of this. But she just can't stand to see poor animals be alone and miserable outside, and I can handle that.

Anyway, the last few nights we've heard cats fighting outside, and last night we heard them right outside the den. We decided to break them up, so Wife got the flashlight and ran around the side of the house to chase them off. When she got around to the side of the house, I saw a small cat run from her, and of course the fighting stopped. But I watched as Wife pointed the flashlight toward the side of the house, and I saw a funny look on her face.

Turns out the cats have managed to dislodge one of the little vent covers that keeps animals out of the crawl-space. That's right, the cats were fighting over who got to spend the night in the relative warmth underneath our house. Wife said she saw the other cat tucked away down there, and I suggested that perhaps she'd gone under there to give birth or something, but we saw no kittens (or evidence thereof).

This is, of course, unacceptable, kittens or no kittens. We can't have feral cats coming around and fighting over who gets to live underneath the house; nor can we have other critters finding that opening and setting up shop down there. So today we found the vent cover (they'd pushed it inward and it fell inside) and put it back--but it wouldn't stay without sticking a small twig into the opening to jam it shut.

So, Wife sort of got her wish to give Kittenface and Meowdude a nice warm place to stay, for at least one night, anyway. I'd better not hear 'em fighting over anything tonight...