Trapped

Inspirational song: Folsom Prison Blues (Johnny Cash)

Back in the days when Gozdilla's Kittens (the trio I raised together) were babies, I was walking down the hallway one day, and I heard baby Cricket crying plaintively. I couldn't find her, but I could hear her. I saw her sister Smacky, sitting on top of the heavy wooden lid of the laundry hamper, but no sign of Cricket who was clearly wailing, "Moooooooooommmm..." I came back down the hallway and took another look at Smacky, who blinked innocently at me from her perch, and then I picked her up and opened the laundry hamper. "Mom!! I'm in prison!" Cricket cried, her nose the brightest pink from upset. Somehow the tiny kitten had crawled into a 30 inch high hamper, only to have her sister slam the lid shut and hide her in it.

I have often wondered lately, do the current cats think they are in prison now? They spend all night and day perched on the window sills, crying to go out. During the nights, they take turns crawling through the miniblinds in the window above my head, only to jump down moments later onto my pillow, and walk on me on the way out of the room. Over and over and over. Zoe has escaped into the parking lot half a dozen times already, and she is getting increasingly desperate to get out. Now Athena and Alfred are showing increased interest in the door. I wonder what they think, coming from a house with plenty of space to spread out and a private lizard hunting preserve they were allowed to roam unsupervised fairly often. Now they are trapped in a small, hot, noisy apartment with only a few potted plants to remind them of nature. The humans come and go every day, and the dogs get to walk around the back of the building four or five times a day. To add insult to injury, the dogs get to go on rides to special dog parks and to spend overnights up on their own private mountain. I keep promising to the cats that a new place is coming, but I don't know whether they believe me after all these weeks. Jacqueline and Rabbit just stare at me and scream about how sick they are of the apartment. It's just one more week, but it will take years to pass. At least it feels that way. Poor cats.