CATastrophe at the Gumps' house

I am so happy to say that both my cats were warm and cozy last night sleeping at the foot of our bed. For those of you who don't know- I accidentally shut Boyd outside on Thursday night while misting our evergreen wreath with water. He likes to stand in the doorway and sniff the outside air, so when I shut the door I must have bumped him out instead of letting him back in and didn't notice for about 2 hours that he was gone. He is terrified of the traffic noise that comes down our street and is pretty skittish in general so I'm sure he had no idea what to do or where to go as I sat about 6 feet away in my recliner watching tv! (OH, the guilt.)

We have had to have two cats put to sleep in the past year- one in December of '09 and one in February of '10, so I immediately panicked and got really upset, thinking I would never see Boyd again. Tyler and I searched for a couple hours out in the dark and the cold, but couldn't find a trace of him. We put out boxes of towels and some of our clothes for him to sleep in if he came back since it was so cold, and set out some food since he never had a chance to eat dinner. During the night I got up a couple of times to peek my head outside and call his name, but I only ended up attracting other strays from the neighborhood- one of which came right inside the house!

I ended up having to go to school in the morning and I'm sure I looked great with my swollen eyes and red face from crying all night. The awesome AP secretaries arranged for subs to cover my next 2 classes during their conference periods so I came home to keep looking for Boyd. We had some flyers printed at Kinko's and my family came out to help spread the word and look for him. THANK GOODNESS my brother came because while my mom, sister, and I were out hanging up flyers on doors, he got under the house and just before he was about to give up- saw a cat under there!

I was a little hesitant to get excited because it could have been any cat, but I was definitely starting to have some hope that my worst case scenario might not play out! As it turned out, it was Boyd under there and with some serious maneuvering of my brother under the house, and coaxing from us on the outside, we were able to catch the scared little fellow. He proceeded to crawl up inside a sleeper loveseat we have in our bedroom and stayed there for a couple of hours.

Tyler and I are sooo relieved not to have to deal with losing another cat. Perhaps the only member of the household not thrilled with his return is Vlu- she's been hissing at him and has bopped him on the head several times already! I think he might smell weird to her or something. Hopefully they'll work it out in the next few days. In the meantime, I will be MUCH more careful when misting my wreath!