I know that you all just oohed and ahhed over her cuteness. She's really too much, isn't she?
This sweet little face got me thinking about when I first got MY little fella. Of course, he gets a blog about once a month, and I realize he's already gotten his blog for June, but what the heck. I recalled a memorable incident with him when he was just a wee thing.
My first apartment by myself in the city was a tiny little studio. Well, scratch that, by studio standards, it was decently-sized with an excellent closet. The kitchen, however, was the smallest kitchen that I've ever seen. Since it was a student's apartment, it was furnished almost entirely of hand-me-down furniture. Mom and Dad's old love seat here, bed from an estate sale over there...you get the idea.
I think the bed was the worst piece of furniture I had. Granted, I am grateful that I got a free bed on which to sleep while in law school, but face it, springs in your side is never a great way to spent your beauty slumber. The bed was very old and so was the box spring. Since it had clearly been moved several times, the fabric on the bottom of the bed spring had torn. Not a problem for me, I bed-skirted it and called it a day. No torn fabric here!
Fast forward to the fall of 2003. Oxford was only a few months old and I always felt guilty about leaving him. I was careful to not let him sneak out as I left so that he would not get out the door. (Ever since he was little, he has never liked to see me go and almost always follows me to the door.) One day, I got home and he was not waiting for me as he usually did. I called for him.
"Oxxxxxfoooorrrrd."
No response. I called his name again.
"Oxxxforrrrrd, where are you?"
No response again. This was rather peculiar, as he usually ran to the door when he heard my key in the lock. I looked in my walk-in closet thinking that perhaps he'd crawled up on my laundry pile to sleep. He wasn't in there. Anyone who has ever lived in a studio knows that it's challenging to hide anything out of sight, aside from any closet space. Come on, don't tell me you never tried a hide-and-seek in a studio. Trust me, if you can hide successfully in a studio apartment, clearly, you excel at the game.
I began to get a little worried. This was not like him, he clearly was no where to be found in my bed. I looked under the bed, in all of my lower cupboards in my kitchen, in the bathtub. I opened my door and walked up and down the hallways. My worry turn to a full-blown panic attack. I called my building maintenance man to see if maybe he'd gotten out. He hadn't seen him. I called my boyfriend at the time in tears. I had no idea what to do. Obviously, Oxford had escaped and I had no idea how to process this fact. In hysterics, I cried, "How could this happen? Whyyyyy?"
I literally was sitting on my floor, having hung up on the boyfriend in a fit of raging panic, crying when I heard a teeny little mew. My heart skipped a beat. I held my breath for what seemed like an eternity and just listened. I heard the mew again. It was coming from underneath my bed.
But I had checked under my bed. He wasn't there. I was certain. But sure enough, it was coming from under my bed. Turns out, the little guy had crawled up into my box spring via the torn fabric and been unable to get himself out. I had to rip more of the fabric to rescue him from the box spring because my arms were not long or slim enough to get him from the little hole he'd used to get up there.
I had never been so relieved in my 22 years. I'm sure he was pretty relieved as well.
The one thing I learned from this mess: The baby kitty will always win a game of hide and seek. Always.
Now scroll back up and look at Dolly again. I know you can't resist.
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