Intruder!!!

I almost blogged the first part of this story last night, before I had any idea of the outcome.  Knowing this morning what I didn't know then, it would have been even funnier.  Ah well, missed opportunities.

Last night Hubby-head was in the mood for something carbonated to drink, so he made a run to the grocery store somewhere around 8:30 or 9:00 PM.  He left the house and came back in through the garage (this will be important later)... I stayed on the computer, chatting with Nick and playing a new game I was trying out through RealArcade.  Just another uneventful evening at our house, or so I thought.

Some time after Hubby got home, maybe 9:30 or 10:00 PM, we heard a loud thump - it sounded like someone was trying to force the front door open.  A bit of panic - and a lot of adrenaline - shot through me, and Hubby jumped off the couch and yelled "What the HELL?" before rushing to the front window (when he's scared he gets angry).  Nobody was there, nobody even within sight of the door.  He opened the door and looked around.  Nothing.  Once our heart rates returned to normal, we shrugged it off and went back to the usual evening goofing off.

About half an hour later, it happened again, and Hubby was looking around for a weapon should someone manage to break into the house.  I was half ready to call the police to come out and look around, but still there was nobody within view and noplace to hide.  I had become considerably jumpy, though, and checked out the front window a few more times.  At one point, I heard a soft noise in the garage that sounded like a mop or broom falling over, and peeked out the door... but saw nothing nearby and didn't bother to turn on the light to take a closer look around.  In hindsight, I probably should have, it would have saved us the comedy of terrors that followed.

We finally came down from the adrenaline high and decided we could put aside the edginess and get to sleep about midnight.  I was looking forward to a good 5-1/2 hours of sleep - just a normal night at our house indeed.

Until 3:30 AM, when Hubby and I were awakened by a loud thumping at our back sliding glass door.  The vertical blinds were rattling loudly, giving us the clue that whatever was hitting the door was inside the house.  My first thought was that it was Katie, a.k.a. Crackhead, who frequently throws herself at that glass door thinking she's going to catch a bird or a bug or something she sees through it.  Hubby, a little freaked out but mostly exasperated at being woken up, stalked into the living room to find...

...A strange cat, in the throes of a freak-out-hissy-fit, trying desperately to get out of the house, throwing itself wildly at the back door.  He (it?) wouldn't let Hubby near him, and when chased toward the front door he circled back through the kitchen, hopping up on the counter just in time for me to spy him flying through the opening into the dining room, over the couch, and up on top of the kitty condo in the corner by the back door again.  He was a handsome Siamese cat, but every time one of us approached, he growled and hissed and bared his fangs.

Anastasia (our scaredy-cat) chose that moment to come out of the bedroom, walked right in front of me, and confronted the interloper with yowls and hisses of her own.  I began throwing pillows at StrangerKitty, and Stasia retreated to the bedroom where she sat watchfully on the pillows until the whole thing was over.

Hubby held open the front door and screen while I threw pillows at StrangerKitty, until he bolted for the front and then stopped by the door to the garage - unwilling to come near enough to Hubby-head to get out of the front door - and lay on his side ready to kick, claw and bite if one of us touched him.  He wouldn't move, and neither of us was willing to risk the pain of touching him.  I had a bright idea, and went back in the bedroom to grab the comforter off the bed, thinking I could toss it over him and grab him through the thick material, then toss him out the front door.

No such luck.  As I approached with the comforter, ThreatenedStrangerKitty made a break for the upstairs bedroom.  He then managed to flatten himself into the bottom shelf of one of my bookshelves, on top of a row of yearbooks from high school, junior high and elementary school.  I stuck a comforter-swaddled hand into the space and felt his teeth clamp down on the fabric.  I looked around for something to use to force him out of the space.  Other books did nothing.  Then I spied a cheap put-it-together-yourself side table my old roommate had left behind, one with screw-on poles for legs.  I unscrewed a pole and used it as a kitty prod.

I poked him gently.  He hissed at me, bit at the end of the stick, and didn't move.  I prodded him more insistently.  He hissed some more, scrambled for a better position, and knocked half the books out of the shelf.  The other half tipped over onto him, and he refused to move.

About that time, I was feeling guilty - I love cats, and didn't really want to hurt it, but this cat didn't belong there, and was creating havoc in my house at 3:30 in the morning, and I wanted him OUT.  So I prodded hard enough that I worried about causing internal injuries, and still the StrangerKitty didn't move.  He glared at me from the bookshelf.  Somewhere right in the middle of this brouhaha, Hubby uttered the expected phrase used in such situations in all blogging households: "We have got to blog about this."

Hubby-head brought up the squirt bottle that we used sometimes to try to train Katie, then ran back down to the bottom of the stairs.  He had a brilliant idea - since the front door didn't work, let's try to get him out the garage instead.  He opened the automatic garage door, then held the door from the house to the garage open, while I squirted StrangerKitty with a hard stream of water, right in the butt, multiple times.  No dice.  He wasn't even growling at this point.  I had a horrifying mental image of leaving him up there to find him dead the next day, so I decided to be brave and get my hands within biting range again.

I used the comforter to push aside the stack of yearbooks that had fallen across StrangerKitty, and so freed, he slowly turned and slipped out of the bookshelves, glaring at me the whole while.  Then he made a break for the downstairs - right for the garage door... and ... PAST IT, into the living room again, on top of the kitty condo, and then on top of the vertical blinds at the back window.

WetAndUnhappyStrangerKitty perched himself on the curtain rod, hissing and growling whenever Hubby approached.  At this point, I really wanted to go get the digital camera to grab a photo for the inevitable blog post, but 1) my camera doesn't do great in low-light indoor situations anyway, and 2) I was really more concerned with getting the cat the heck out of my house so we could go back to bed.

I offered to hold the door open to the garage if Hubby would try to get the cat down from his perch.  He tried throw pillows (literally - ha!)... no luck.  Then he thought maybe he could open the sliding glass door and get the cat out that way, but the screen wouldn't open from the far side and the thought of StrangerKitty jumping down on his head with teeth and claws extended was just a bit too nerve-wracking.  I suggested he get the broom from the garage and use that to prod the kitty off the curtain rod.  StrangerKitty did not cooperate.

Finally, I gave up on the garage door idea, threw the comforter over my head to protect myself from FlyingNinjaStrangerKitty, and opened the screen.  I then took the broom from Hubby and gave StrangerKitty a good scolding and semi-gentle prodding, which resulted in him taking the valance down with him when he slipped off the curtain rod.  However, finally, StrangerKitty streaked out the door into the dark of night, (hopefully) not to be seen again.

It was 4:15 AM.  Hubby and I were feeling really sorry for our neighbor Cindy, who must have been rather startled to have her normally sedate neighbors running around screaming, banging on things, and opening and closing doors frantically for 45 minutes in the middle of the night.  My guess is that the cat snuck into the garage while Hubby was leaving for or coming back from the grocery store, and slipped in to the house while we were asleep - the knob on the connecting door between the garage and the house has a broken part, and doesn't latch properly when it's closed.  A determined cat could have pushed it open, and that's probably what he was trying to do earlier when we heard all the thumping near the front door.

We got back to bed at 4:30.  Stasia was still standing watch on the bed, peering out into the living room in between giving us loving nuzzles and head-butts.  She sat on my stomach, facing the door, for several minutes, then climbed on top of Hubby and did the same.  The last thing I heard Hubby say before drifting back to sleep:  "Stasia, you're so cute when you're being Homeland Security."

Indeed.

Comments

[Mom-N-Law]

At least Hubby-Head was lucky it wasn't a skunk! You need to ask him why that is :)

[kneel]

Skunk would have been worse. Opossum wouldn't have been much fun either.

[steph]

"flyingninjastrangerkitty" is my favorite. : )

we have a kitty friend who we nicknamed fluffy. the three-year-old began calling him/her/them (we found out he's really two different cats who look exacly the same) snuffy. snuffy has decided that terrorizing our three cats through my sliding glass door is the best thing ever. well, the best thing ever after clawing up every screen on my house. on monday i had had enough. i didn't want to hurt him/her/them, so i picked up a glass and threw water on him/her/oneofthem. then i had to do it again on wednesday. a few more times and i think snuffy will stay in her partially opened garage...