Anyhow, when I was on vacation, our cat went out for a pack of cigarettes figuratively speaking.

MPH felt really bad about it. The cat was supposed to be an indoor cat - but we let her wander. She would beg to be let out all the time.

I adopted the cat thru a friends of pets organization. I did an adoption contract, and she was implanted with a microchip.

When I got back from vacation, one of the first things I did was file a lost cat report with the animal control shelter. At that time I couldn't find the microchip number or the whole envelope with the adoption contract in it.

Last Sunday morning, it's been about 2 weeks since I got back from vacation, we had a phone call from a lady that thought she might have found Lucy. Lucy is a small gray tabby cat, with nothing notable about her. I talked to the lady for a little while and kind of put it off that this lady lived way too far away for it possibly to be Lucy. I dug around and finally found the envelope with the contract and microchip #. Later on, after football of course, MPH wanted to go see the cat anyhow, so we called the lady and agreed to meet at her house.

MPH and I drove over there. He decided that the dogs would know if it was Lucy. We got there and MPH and I went to the door, the lady answered, we said hello - and she asked how we would know if it was our cat. MPH said that our dogs would know, and he took off to get Rosie, the chihuahua, Rosie's about 9lbs. The lady went to get the cat about that same moment. She came to the door with the cat, and instantly I knew it wasn't our cat Lucy - because in her arms she had about the biggest cat I'd ever seen. I was speechless - because it was a BIG cat (I guess you could say that the cat got my tongue). Then MPH came back to the door holding Rosie. The cat was about 3x the size of Rosie and was obviously showing signs of not being dog friendly, was almost ready to scratch the hell out of the woman holding her. We said our goodbyes and thanks, and left.

I told MPH that we should go to the animal control shelter and do a walkthru. We did, I updated the lost pet report with the microchip number. It was a sad place, I really just want to give all those animals a home. We checked it all over and the people working there recommended that we go to the Humane Society cattery.

We found the place, it was in a business park warehouse. We walked in and I thought I was going to pass out from the smell. 2 cats got out the door when MPH came in, he had to go chase them back in. They told us to go walkthru the building. The first room had probably 50 loose cats in it and maybe 10-20 in kennels. We looked through all those then we went back into the warehouse area - there looked like there were at least 100-200 loose cats in the room. It went back into another section and there had to be at least 20 more kenneled cats and another 100 loose cats. It was a little scary in there and the people were a little strange.

I looked around for a while, MPH was checking around. I saw a cat that looked a lot like Lucy go trotting from the one room into another so I followed it. I finally caught up to her and was thinking that it was a little bigger than what Lucy would be. Then it noticed that I was following it - and it talked to me and rubbed on my leg and wanted more petting. I talked to it a little - but concluded that it wasn't Lucy. Then behind me I heard another cat talking to me - it was a big orange fluffy cat, so I turned around and started talking to it and petting it. Well - the other cat got a little upset - and jumped on my back - and dug all 20 claws into my jacket. Needless to say - it got my attention - I let out a little yell. Then went looking for MPH because I couldn't get the cat off me. He pulled it off me and then it climbed up on his shoulders and he couldn't get it off him. He finally got it off onto a shelf nearby.

We left a lost cat report with their office.

When we got home - I was reading over the adoption contract that I had signed when I adopted the cat, and found out that I was supposed to notify them if the pet was lost within 24 hours. Well it had been 3 weeks by then, but I went ahead and sent them an email and explained the circumstances.

The next day at work - this lady calls me and asks if I had a pen and paper, then proceeded to give me this list of things to do because of the lost cat.

1) I had to file lost cat report at the Animal Control Shelter - which I did

2) I had to file a lost cat report at the Humane society - which I did.

3) I had to file a lost cat report at the SPCA

4) I had to send notice to the pet emergency treatment center.

5) I had to send notice to the animal hospitals and clinics around town

6) I had to post 200 (YES 200!) flyers in my neighborhood and if any of them fell down or blew away - I had to immediately replace them

7) I had to notify all my neighbors and the neighborhood kids

8) Call the local schools

9) Go through the neighborhood and look under porches, sheds, greenhouses, with a flashlight and look really good because cats sometimes don't want to be found

10) Tape record a can opener and play it while walking through the neighborhood

11) Put a warm bed and food and water out for the cat, and if the water froze - change it immediately.

I tried to tell the lady that I work full-time and that there's no way possible that I could do all this. She told me that I better find somebody to help me.

By the end of the phone call - I was a little upset - I had tried to be nice to the lady - she was obviously a little bit different than your average person.

Well - that friends of pets organization might not let me adopt any more pets from them.