Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Mobile Air Raid Siren

Traveling with pets is one of things you can research until the world ends, at which stage it’s a moot point but I digress, and when the reality begins your faithful pet will manage to do everything you never anticipated.

In January 2006, I was finishing an eight month long assignment in Washington, D.C. Two months previously, I had returned to California to fetch Squeak, an elderly but still feisty Siamese who should have had the more accurate name Air Raid Siren. Her vocal chords must be bionic because no cat can produce as many sounds, and at the intense volume, that she can.

The adventure started when I took her in her carrier to the office of the apartment I was renting to turn in the keys. A woman was standing at the desk talking to one of the staff, when she turned and asked, “Who has the crying baby?” Her look was one of bewilderment on not seeing anything remotely resembling a baby. Yep, it was Squeak, and when upset Siamese do sound much like a cranky baby.

Fortunately and unfortunately she’s nocturnal. Fortunately because she usually sleeps between 10 AM and 2 PM in the day, so I had some peace and quiet while driving. Unfortunately because she started pitching a fit by 5 PM, which was when I almost always hit rush hour traffic in an unfamiliar city. Since this was January, I took a southern route to avoid getting stuck in blizzards. This added a couple extra days to the trip. My eardrums have not been the same since.

After getting to my hotel for the night, I would set up her food, water and litter box, and hope she’d be so worn out she’d sleep next to me until morning.

Not a chance.

The second night I was in Meridian, Mississippi. I went out to the car and had the door to my room open for maybe five seconds. Fifteen minutes after returning to my room I thought it was unusually quiet. I looked under the bed, her usual hiding place. No Squeak. I looked everywhere else for 45 minutes with the rising panic she had freaked out and bolted as soon as she saw the open door. Seeing as how she’s an indoor cat, her chances of outside survival were not good. But I looked outside anyway, frantic that she was gone forever.

Then back inside I glanced at a recliner. It hadn’t dawned on me there might be enough space for her to sneak inside. Upending the recliner revealed one cat looking so smug she could hide that well as well as stay absolutely motionless and silent the entire time. As for the rest of the trip, it got to be a pattern with her finding more hiding places, usually under or inside the bed where getting her out was going to take some serious explosives.

But there was still a lot of furniture moving and the occasional mattress removal to flush her out.
Before checking out I did my best to make sure the room looked like it had been hit by no more than an F1 tornado. I still kept a list of the hotels I stayed at, because they may not be welcoming me back if I have to repeat this trip.

However, come November, it’s quite possible she’ll be taking one more cross-country drive with me to Texas. Though on a serious note, that depends on her health. She’s seventeen and a year ago was diagnosed with Chronic Renal Failure (CRF), meaning her kidneys are failing. Next installment will talk about treatments and links to sound advice…

1 comment:

Eric said...

Ok, so I'm writing to myself to make it look like someone is actually reading this.