Kitten once again

So the pizza boy comes,
with two pizzas and a paper I was supposed to sign
and the dog barking ...
'bark bark bark it's the deadly pizza delivery man bark bark bark'
and me holding the dog and the door and the pen and two pizzas

and the cat got out.

'It's dark,' says I to myself. 'The cat will come back soon.'

So I waited. No cat.
I walked around the house. No cat.

'Dog. Go. Find the cat," said I.

Dog can't find the cat.
But I can hear the cat.
'Ah,' says I, sorting through various possibilities and picking the worst possible case. 'I know where she is.'

So I go out and look. I was right. The cat has fallen, jumped, or been pulled by nameless monsters from some H.P. Lovecraft universe into the sewer.

Probably she jumped. This is a very stupid cat.

meow meow meow meow meow

I discover I am not strong enough to remove the manhole cover. Those puppies are havy. Who knew?

If I were overseas, I would immediately call the US Embassy. I know this because I used to BE the one you called at the US Embassy when you lost your cat, or your car got towed, or you'd fogotten the name of your hotel and couldn't find your way back.
But I'm not overseas so I can't harass some hapless Vice Consul.

I dialed 911, figuring that was the equivalent.

911, in my small town, turns out to be deep-voice, calm, reassuring and male. I picture him as middle-aged and barrel-chested, with a fleshy face and 8 or 10 hours of beard.

'This is not a people emergency,' I said. 'It is an animal emergency.'

'We will call the Fire Department,' said he.

So the Fire Department came. They showed up in the person of a small, skinny girl who looked like she might be in High School. She listened to the cat in the sewer
meow meow meow meow
and then she lifted up the manhole cover. Ooomph.
Yep.
There was the cat, about twelve, fifteen feet down. Fortunately the sewer was dry as a bone, it not having rained for a while.

She talks on her cell phone.
'A ladder truck will be here in a minute,' she says.
And, sure enough, the ladder truck does indeed come, with huge working lights and two short but muscular men.

Everybody looks down the sewer.
meow meow meow meow.
It's a fine, clean sewer, as these things go.

'There's a kind of ladder on the side,' says one of the nice Firemen.
"I'll go,' says the nice young girl Fireman.

And she does.
She needs reassurance that the cat is not going to bite her. I think being a Fireman makes one cynical about animals.
She keeps quail – I have previously discovered this as we chatted, waiting for the ladder truck – and is allergic to dogs and cats.

I asked her whether she kept quail as an animal rescue thing or as an heirloom breed rescue thing, but she said she just likes quail. They hop, apparently.

The kitten is hoisted up.
The Firemen up top help pull the lass out of the manhole, 'Oh look, she got her jersey dirty.' And they shake her hand. 'Congratulations on your first cat rescue.' So I think she's new.

I thanked them many many many times. I explained, 'the cat has the intelligence of a loaf of bread.'
As they walked back to the firetruck, one said to the other 'I don't do snakes.' which gave me a favorable view of his intelligence.


That was Sunday night.
Tonight, at 6:43, an idiot walking his idiot Labrador let it loose in my yard. It chased the kitten up a tree. 60 feet up a tree.
I am sitting on the back porch looking at the kitten up a tree.

Intelligence of a loaf of bread.