Daria Doering

Our daughter Nina adopted a kitten almost a year ago, as she was quarantining in Los Angeles with her roommate, working at a demanding job, had broken up with her long-time boyfriend, had a horrible acne outbreak, and was generally feeling terrible.  Leo is a very active and affectionate cat, and has been a lifesaver for her.

So now, when our children visit, they bring their pets.  At this point we have our cat, Sophie; we’re babysitting Jake and Madison’s rabbit, Uni; Nina and Leo are visiting; and then there is always Max, the neighborhood cat, who acts like he lives with us. 

So after three days of Nina visiting, but always being off with her friends, we were finally having a “family night” of watching a funny movie.  We were sitting there laughing, about ten minutes into the movie, and I was feeling so happy about having picked just the right movie for our Los Angeles based kids – LA Story with Steve Martin – and looking forward to lots more welcome laughs.

Nina was sitting on the couch with a bag next to her – a “Gap” bag with rope handles, containing some shorts a friend had dropped off for her.  You know how cats love boxes and bags.  Leo jumped up onto the couch, and onto the bag, and one of the rope handles somehow got around his neck.

He looked terrified, jumped down, bag still around his neck, and took off at a run!  We were now laughing at Leo and the bag.  Nina said she had never seen him run so fast!  Nina immediately went after Leo, but he was nowhere to be seen.  We were all somewhat concerned by a cat with something stuck around his neck, so Mike, nephew Don and I also got up and started searching for Leo.

We searched all through our two-story house … nothing.  Mike got out a big flashlight and looked under furniture, through every closet, and even crawled through the attic, which adjoins Nina’s room.  There was no sign of either Leo or the bag.  We all got quiet and listened in various places … this is not normally a quiet cat … and didn’t hear a peep.

We contemplated whether Leo could have jumped out a window.  The casement windows in our bedroom were slightly ajar, though it is three stories down to the backyard, so we hoped to hell he hadn’t jumped.  But Don took the flashlight and searched all around the perimeter of our house.

Nina went to the grocery store and bought a jingly cat toy.  She jingled it all around the house, hoping to lure Leo out, but to no avail. 

I googled “How to find a cat that is hidden in your house,” and Don and I laughed at the advice, though it was actually a pretty good article.  But it didn’t really have anything that could help us.

Nina called her friend Emma, who told her that her cat sometimes hid for hours.

Nina and her dad got into a fight, of course, after Mike voiced what probably all of us were thinking, but carefully not saying – that he hoped the cat hadn’t hanged himself by now.  

Mike kept diligently searching, and even pulled our big bed on a foundation of drawers out from the wall, since there is a “channel” underneath, only accessible from the head of the bed, that a cat could crawl into – but Leo was not there.

We reassured each other that it was extremely unlikely that Leo had jumped out the window … he must be hiding … he must be keeping quiet for the first time in his life.

I was mostly sad that our watching of the funny movie was interrupted.  I said to Don, “Welcome to the bizarre world of the Doerings, where we can’t even do something normal like watch a movie without some crazy shit like this happening.”  It just felt unbelievable that a loud and juvenile cat, with a large bag attached to it, could disappear like this without a trace!  

Our search went on for a couple of hours, and it had gotten too late to keep watching the movie.  So I went to bed, and asked Nina to wake me if the cat was found.

I went to sleep, and a couple of hours later was awakened by – a gray kitten, with part of a bag still stuck around his neck, walking around next to my head!  I grabbed Leo, removed the bag, and brought him in to Nina!  I had a very happy daughter!  

I was even able to immediately go back to sleep.  When Mike came to bed we mumbled to each other that we will probably never know where Leo had been hiding.  Probably in the attic, which is filled with junk and has numerous crawl spaces.  Maybe someday we will find the rest of the bag.