I love the story, Vickie, but then I am always a sucker for "cute kitty" stories. I remember years ago spending literally hours trying to find our cat, whose piteous mewing I could hear but not find, only to find him finally stuck in a crawl space I didn't think anyone had opened. He was so happy to be found!

With two kitties that are just a little over a year old, I am still amused every day by their antics. Well, not by Darcy's cord chewing, but everything else is part of the entertainment package around here.

Guess he was one cool cat, huh?

Thank goodness he was loud enough and there were people close enough to hear! A co-worker's curious kitten wasn't so lucky a few years ago. A frantic and thorough inspection of the house turned up nothing until the next morning when she went to get milk for her coffee, and of course by then it was too late. She was devastated, but it never occurred to her to look in the fridge.

Isn't that just terribly sad? I have five kitties and you need to look everywhere when one goes missing. They find the d*mnest places to hide. One of my cats found an entry through my bedroom closet into the joists between the ceiling and attic floor.

When my son was a toddler, not yet two, he had one of those tupperware block boxes where you put shapes through the holes and they fell into the box when they fit. My Siamese kitten went missing and I tore the house apart. I didn't think to look in the fridge either. When I went to make supper I saw his block box on a shelf in the fridge and I smiled until I saw fur sticking out in the shape of stars, circles and squares. I don't know how long she had been in there, but it had to have been hours. She was alive, very scared, and spent the next couple of days hiding in drawers and the like. so, I got to go hunting some more.

My son wasn't being mean, he was just being a toddler. I found the kitten a new home so that she'd grow up without toddlers about. It's the only cat I'd ever given up, but it really was for its own good. LOL.

With a cat, you always have to watch out for leaving a door to anything open. One time I was doing the wash & turned on the dryer with a new load & heard crazy wails. Teh cat had jumped in & taken a couple of spins!

I had no idea so many kittens liked getting into fridges, though tpperkitty didn't really choose that, did she? How sad that one did not make it out alive--who would have thought?
I love the dryer story, Andie. There's a cartoon out there somewhere with the dog urging the cat into the dryer with signs saying "fud" and all arrows pointing to the dryer. I used to have it on my office door, but now I have one with cat sitting in front of computer saying, "Good--I just sold the dog on E-bay."

Well, I can tell you what happens when you tumble dry a marmalade Persian for 15 minutes on permanent press...

Thanksgiving eve a few years back, I took half a day off from work to make the trek home to PA for the feast. Was running around like a headless chicken trying to get the last of the laundry dried, suitcases packed and into the car, gathering up all the contributions to the feast, taking care of the DS and all those things that people do while their DH's (now XDH) take a shower. I couldn't find one of my running shoes and offered DS $5 if he found it. Maggie, the autistic dog, had a fondness for my shoes and I swore she hid it. We're searching and searching when I hear a thud...thud...thud...coming from the dryer. How in the heck did that little dog get the shoe in the dryer? I opened the door and there lay Sam, my marmalade Persion, looking like Bill the Cat from the old Bloom County comic strip! Even meowed like him...I'll never forget it. Blood coming from his mouth, eyes bugged out, he just laid there. I screamed, afraid to touch him because I just KNEW he was busted to pieces. So, I ran to the bathroom for the DH, screamed at him that Sam had been in the dryer for the past 15 minutes. Took him a second to realize what I was saying in my hysteria, he bolts nekked as a jaybird, shampoo in his hair, dripping water the whole way to the laundry room. Sam was still laying there looking like Bill. DH reached for him and I reached for the phone. I still had the vet on speed dial from when I had Casper the $5 million kitty. I get the receptionist on the phone and hysterically tell her that Sam had been in the dryer for the past 15 minutes. She told me to bring him right in, they'd be waiting. DH had wrapped Sam in an old towel, handed him to me, threw on some clothes and we were out the door and on the way to the vet within 5 minutes. We reached the vet in record time and they were waiting for us. My vet never shows any emotion, I use to think he was void of emotion, until now. The tech had taken Sam's temp, the doc walked in, looked at it, and immediately started to bark orders. Poor Sam's temp was 108 after riding in the car for 10 minutes in the cold November air. Vet started him on IV fluids, gave him a shot to help bring his temp down, gave him another shot to help keep his kidney from shutting down, and whisked him away. Then he looked at me and I thought the lecture was sure to follow. Instead, he put his arm around me and said "don't berate yourself, this happens all the time, he should be ok". Whew! Then he laughed and said "Poor guy just used up one of those 9 lives! You must have a padded dryer to not have heard him after two spins!" Well, what can I say? I hate doing laundry so I turn on the dryer and let it go. I don't hang around any longer than I have to!

Five days later, we were handed a bald cat (they shaved him completely) and a bill for over $400. When his hair started to grow back, the hair on one ear that had been scraped and bleeding came in pure white.

Since then, he's not only jumped in the dryer twice (I caught the sneaky devil tho!), he also jumped in the washer while it was filling and jumped in the dishwasher after DS emptied it. Some cats just never learn...

Running a "Home for Wayward Cats" as I am these days, I've had a kitten crawl under the dishwasher and get one of the wires wrapped around her paw, one crawl in the freezer, another in the ice box, and I've had to wire tie my cupboards together to keep them out of the pots and pans, plastic ware and anything else in the lower cupboards. I had to move all the glass canning jars off the shelf where I keep them and swap them with all the canned goods in the pantry. I had one kitten who liked to tear the wallpaper off the wall, another one who liked to push the buttons on the answering machine, and another who was fascinated with turning on the kitchen sink faucet. I celebrated when I found homes for the last kitten...until I ended up with another pregnant stray who delivered two solid black kittens this past May. These two enjoy shredding the kitchen chair cushions and playing hide-n-seek with the throw carpets.

Anyone want a kitten?

What!!! You mean to say that I'm the only one who looks in the fridge when I lose my keys, remote, (insert item here)??? I've been known to put the oddest things in the oddest places so the fridge is just one more place to look while searching. Unlike my brother who seemed to think that anything lost would magically attached itself to the ceiling.

Maryanne, I know I should be laughing, but I am at the image of your cat looking like Bill from Bloom County. And I do believe that he/she would crawl into the dryer again. Personally, I think most cats have brains the size of walnuts.

Of course my dog isn't much better.Last summer he got bit by a copperhead after sticking his nose down into a hole in the woods. In the five minutes it took me to get him back to the house, his whole head had blown up to the size of a football. Mad dash to the emergency vet's, $180 later, the vet tells me just to give him a benedryl "the next time."

Well surely, I thought there wouldn't be a next time. But 24 hours later, he was trying to stick his nose down the very same hole.

pris, i must have found a soul mate. I still have'nt lived down putting the salt in the fridg years ago.
I'll have to tell DD to watch that silly kitten closely so he does'nt end up in fridg again. Here i've been bragging how smart our fur babies are. I guess not.
vickie

It's ok, Andie. Now that it's over and I've paid off that credit card charge, any time I need a laugh, I think of the way Sam looked on that fateful day and LMAO! Either that, or I think of the day about 20 years ago when one of my more larger cats got stuck in the middle of a hack saw and my two girlfriends were hysterical because they forgot the blades were on the outside of the saw and thought the cat was going to be cut in two! Yes, half the cat was halfway through the saw, barreling around the house with 2 women chasing her. I almost wet my pants laughing when the cat tried to run behind the sofa and...BOING! Just like in the cartoons, she bounced about a foot backwards. At that point, she looked at me very stunned, let out a very frustrated meow and peed on the floor. One of my friends then grabbed the saw, sliced her hand open, and cursed at me for laughing. Didn't end up at the vet that night, but did spend 3 hours in the ER waiting for her hand to get stitched up.

Disclaimer: No matter what they say about pet owners resembling their pets, I do NOT look like Bill the Cat! Not even when I first wake up. Might act like him without my coffee, but I do not look like him!

My big old tabby tomcat, Hobbes, eats a toad from the garden every spring. I know that's what it was, because I saw him stalking it, and also saw the amphibian remains where he chucked it up.

Once each year in the spring, you can take it to the bank he'll come to the back door drooling and his mouth open with ropes of mucuous hanging out. The first time it happened, he went to the vet. He is smart enough to remember the rest of the summer to leave them alone. Spring rolls around again, and sure enough, he comes to the door in the same state. He's twelve, and just this year, remembered his lesson through the winter. LOL.