Bad Cats

As my regular readers already know, I came into this marriage with two, well-behaved, older cats. My wife supplied two, barely house-broken, teenaged tax deductions. Together, we formed the dysfunctional Brady Bunch.
It was a happy family.

Eventually, life moves on, and our beloved cats, Mackey and Riley, moved on to that Rainbow Bridge in the sky.

As fate would have it, we were blessed with these three.

But don’t be fooled. As cute as they are, they are evil, monstrous creatures. They are teaming up to destroy this house brick by brick. Despite their angelic faces, they are bad… Bad Cats. They climb into the ceiling in the basement and rip out the wires. They dig behind the boiler and pull up rocks.

Bad Cats.

And then there’s this…

Last month, we discovered that Bane, had figured out how to sneak out to the porch roof via the tiny slot on the side of the air conditioner in our son’s room.
When we taped it up, they pulled it down.

When we reenforced it, one of them slit through the plastic and let himself out. We discovered this when Bane came down one evening, soaked to the bone. He decided to take a walk in the pouring rain. Val was apoplectic.

So we took a piece of plastic and taped and wedged it in, creating an impenetrable barrier.

Yeah, right.

Today, as I was heading upstairs to take a shower, I noticed the door to Mike’s room was ajar again. Me heart sank. How are they getting in? More importantly, how are they getting out?

I panicked when I saw that instead of pulling the tape down, they simply burst through the plastic like Baretta kicking down a door.

I went to the other window and discovered this:

I called them from the window, but they laughed at me. I ran downstairs and got the snack jar and tried to entice them by shaking the container. Nothing.

I called, and begged and pleaded with them.

Nada.

I ran back down and grabbed the leftover chicken from last nights dinner. I waved a chicken thigh out the window. That got their attention. Both Bane and Bella came running over, but neither one came close enough to grab. I tried to coax them in. They wouldn’t budge. I pulled off a piece of meat and tossed it to them. They ripped it in half, devoured it, and then went back to bask in the sun. Pepper, my trusty side-kick, came to my side for support.

In a stroke of brilliance, I ran and got my phone, and searched youtube for a video of crying kittens. I played the video, and just as I suspected, Bella’s maternal instincts kicked in. She ran to the sound of the distressed kittens and jumped back through the window.

Bane never even blinked.

One down, one to go.

For the next 40 minutes, I called and barked and pleaded and begged “Val’s Cat” to come in. My last resort was to call Val and face-time her in the hopes that she could convince him to come in. But that would be tantamount to failure.

I went outside and threatened Bane with unspeakable harm if he didn’t return. He laughed. As I searched for a ladder to reach the porch, he teased me by jumping up onto the air conditioner, but as I raced back inside, he jumped back down.

Now panicked and hyperventilating, I grabbed my inhaler to try and quell the growing tightness in my chest. No such luck.
I went back upstairs.
I went back outside.
Nothing worked.
I dangled his favorite toy out the window on a string. He came over and played with me for a minute, but never got in range for me to grab him. I was left with few choices; either pull the A/C out of the window and climb down, find a ladder and climb up, or let him stay out until he got bored.

Boredom set in a few minutes later, and Bane climbed back in safely.

After my heart rate slowed, I was able to call Val and let her know what had transpired. She laughed at my plight.
I failed to see the humor.
Now, it’s noon, my appointment is ruined and I’m trapped in this house with Three bad cats until I can get the escape hatch fixed.

I don’t remember the preacher saying anything about Bad Cats in my vows.
I definitely didn’t sign up for this.