So we have 9 days of holiday before summer session starts back up on the 9th of May -- pretty exciting to have some time off to relax, recoup, and see some sights. My friends Aggie and Piotr, a Polish couple who teach at a nearby school, are using their time off to do some sight-seeing within the neighboring countries. They asked me to look after their two cats --sisters, Nikki and Lana-- while they were away. I happily agreed, as I had been considering getting a cat for myself, just as a companion and someone to cuddle with before Nathan makes it here in the end of May :)
Saturday afternoon, Aggie and I went all over town hunting down extra cat litter, food, etc. and rounding up the cats with their respective boxes and such to make the move over to my apartment. Aggie and Piotr left early in the morning on the next day. Sunday morning, I took off to pick up some cat toys and a coffee down the street (there's several pet supply shops around my neighborhood, conveniently enough). When I left, Lana was curled up on the couch, and Nikki had perched herself up on one of the many shelves in my small, studio apartment. I headed out the door, making sure to lock it behind me, and took off down the street.
Thirty minutes later, I returned to the apartment only to find... the cats were absolutely no where in sight. I spent a good fifteen minutes slowly roaming my itty-bitty apartment. I jingled the cat toys to lure the cats out from wherever they were hiding, called them by name and any other way I possibly thought to. I checked in all their usual lounging places (under the bathroom counter, behind the toilet, on the couch, on the shelves, etc.) -- no where. I searched in cabinets, even inside drawers -- no where. I checked behind the couch, in the shower, above the cabinets, in the closet, and - even though I don't even HAVE space under my bed, I checked under the mattress just to be safe... still, no where. It was if they had simply just... vanished... in the 30 minutes it took me to walk to the store and back. Hard for two (rather large) cats to do in an apartment that can't be more than 30 sq-ft.
Immediately, I worried someone may have taken them out of the room. My apartment has excellent security guards and helpful office-workers, but I knew that technically pets were not allowed in my apartment complex. The cats had spent most of the night crying and meowing like crazy the night before, I assumed just from being in a new place without their parents. Surely the late-night meow-ing didn't irritate someone enough to complain, causing the landlord to come in and snatch the cats away in my absence? I went downstairs to find out.
After some broken English/Broken Thai conversation my favorite security guard, Pirat, found a Thai girl that could translate for me. Together, the three of us viewed the security footage of the hallway I live in... sure enough, there was me... leaving at 11:15am..... and then there I was again, coming back -cat toys in hand- to the room at 11:42am. Nothing and no one in-between.
Pirat told me he'd be on the lookout for any feline passer-by, and even came back up to the room to do another search with me. Again we checked every corner, cubby, inch and drawer -- nothing. The cats seemed to be just absolutely NOT in the room. Yet the windows were closed, and in fact haven't been opened once since I moved in. The balcony, too, was closed and locked. With the front door proving to be clear or any break-in and any escape option ruled out... I was stumped. Frustrated and concerned, I started making phone calls. First to Nathan and my parents (moral support was beyond necessary at this point and they're always the first to help me think logically through life's mysteries.), then to Aggie, Jesse, Stephanie, and even Mr. Al. Thankfully, Jesse answered right away and agreed to come over and help me solve the mystery of the missing cats.
When he arrived we searched the apartment (yet again), and decided to ask one more time about the video footage before taking our little search party to the neighboring area. This time Pirat was helpful enough to show us both the footage I had already viewed, and the footage from the camera on the opposite end of the hallway. The second camera's footage gave no further evidence. No one came to the apartment door --or even walked through the hallway-- while I was gone. And no little, furry, escape-artists were seen at the bottom of the screen, either.
And so, Jesse and I took off. Walked pretty much around the extended block of Soi 27, while Jesse stopped every so often to ask, in Thai, about the missing cats (thank goodness for Jesse! I recall what Nicole said when she first introduced him to me, "but he's leaving in July so just don't get too attached!" - I understand the warning, now, but it's far too late - I'm so thankful he was so willing to help out and I'll miss him when he goes!). No one had seen a thing, aside from the usual stray Soi-Cat.
Defeated from the neighborhood stroll, we made one more trip up to the room, one more in-depth search in the corners of the apartment -- Nothing. I didn't know how I would possibly tell Aggie that within 24 hours I had somehow managed to magically misplaced her poor cats!! We decided to make some more phone calls. Maybe someone had taken the cats and decided, since they weren't to be in the apartment, to just take them to the closest shelter? Where in the world was the closest shelter? If someone had, in fact, stolen them from my apartment, does this make this a matter worth taking to the police? And just how, in Thai, does one say, "oh hey, well yeah, so... I'm cat-sitting but it's the craziest thing, see, I took off for 30 minutes and these cats well uh, they just, uh... disappeared.. into thin air. Just, uh, *poof* --gone." And even despite language barriers, what on earth can the Bangkok Police Department do about cats that have appeared to develop teleportation over night?
Thirty minutes and a few phone calls later, we decided to try the Police Station just in case they could help us with "stolen' cats. The station we went to is located about a 15-minute cab-ride away, and doesn't have much to it. The Buddha sitting on the station porch was easily the most ornate part of the entire building, the rest of it leading into a small concrete room with a few office-style tables and chairs. Three officers listened to Jesse and I take turns spitting English/Thai mixtures and using charade-style communication to get the point across. This is where I have to speak highly of the Bangkok Police team, for not only were they patient and understanding to two incoherent foreigners, but they were willing and helpful enough to make time for us right then and there. For the most part, the officer seemed to understand the situation, and offered to drive Jesse and I back to the apartment so he could come check out the room and search for the cats himself.
Though I truly hoped to head up the stairs to my studio and find the cats just lazily lounging on the couch, unharmed, I couldn't help feel that hot pang of dread in thinking that, if this were the case, I have sufficiently wasted at least 5 or 6 people's time with something that hardly constitutes as an emergency.
But as we walked through the door, into the studio...
... still no cats.
However, I immediately noticed something different. A pile of clothes from my closet were pushed just slightly hanging off of the shelf inside, sticking out of the closet doors, just a bit. I made a b-line for the closet while the others shuffled in. I pushed aside the pile of clothes and yelped just a bit when I saw: A cat. Lana, in fact, in all her lazy chubbiness -- curled up and looking at me like I had just spoiled the best nap of her life. I quickly picked her up and put her on the couch next to Jesse, making sure to avoid eye-contact with the policeman as my embarrassment grew. I turned back to the closet and started feeling wildly inside, reaching way back to the corners I can see, moving piles of clothes and shoes and my suitcase all precariously shoved inside. A box lies in a cubby at the bottom of the closet and I yelped again when I felt behind the box and felt the fur beyond it: Nikki.
I couldn't quite decide whether to laugh or cry, so I thanked the policemen, the security guard, and Jesse for their time and help and thanked God that the only outcome of all this mess was simply me, looking like a jackass. Never have I been so happy to find two animals and so tempted to murder them at the same time.
So there you have it. Anticlimactic, as I warned. But it's just another perfect example of how, at the very least, life in Bangkok is never dull.
 |
| Nikki, in her second-favorite lounging spot. |
No comments:
Post a Comment