Locked Out

     Whenever I step onto the deck at my house and/or whenever I have a piece of cherry pie, I am reminded of Mama Cat. Mama Cat adopted us when we were living in the rented house on Realm Lane, in Georgia here in 1991. She was Siamese in looks but not in meow, and as you might guess, she was pregnant. Not too long after we took her in, she had three kittens which we later gave away and then had Mama fixed. She was used to going outside, and I think she had a few of the neighbors feeding her and sheltering her from the rain and cold also.

     When we moved to our new house on Glynmoore Drive a year later, Mama was reluctant to go outside at first, and just when we got used to the idea of her being an indoor cat, Mama decided to go out again and she explored her new surroundings and endeared herself to the new neighbors.

     Well, it was probably the summer of 97 or 98, I have it written in one of my letters to the girls – so the exact date is somewhere. From the summer of 95 through 2002, Sarah and Amanda spent one month each year on Long Island with their paternal grandparents and other relatives including three cousins – those summers were great times for all involved and have left the girls with cherished memories and a few good stories (and some plays!) that they still tell. 

     When the girls were gone, I was quite alone. Mostly I worked a lot of overtime at the lab, and sometimes I got up enough energy to do some extra cleaning around the house before the girls' return.

     And one late Saturday afternoon, I put a piece of cherry pie on a plate, and with a fork, and either a book or a magazine, I walked out onto the deck for some relaxation. The deck is off of the sunroom, just past the kitchen, and it is an entire story above the backyard with no stairs from the deck down to the yard. Mama Cat was in the house, and when she realized I was on the deck, she went to the storm door and started meowing to come out and join me. I was enjoying my reading and made the choice to not leap out of my chair to open the door for the cat.

     And that prompted Mama to jump up toward the door handle! I don't know if she had figured out that the handle was the way to get the door open, or if she was just trying to get my attention by bouncing off of the door. Mama kept jumping at the door handle, and then it happened – she managed to hit the latch that locked the door! I was locked out of my house on a deck one story off the ground!

    I got up from the chair and tried the door.

    Yeah, it was locked

    Mama Cat was excited when she saw me walk her way! – but she was soon disappointed because I could not open the door for her.

   There was no point in trying to get off of the deck and safely into the yard because the other doors to the house were locked, the garage door was closed, there were no windows open on the first floor – so there would still be no way for me to get in the house even if I attempted the hazardous descent from the deck. If I called out to passersby, they might have been able to help me off the deck, but then that would be it. This was before cell phones – so I had no phone on the deck with me, like I usually have nowadays if only to play words with friends while relaxing.

     But the deck has the house along two of its sides – one wall is the sun-room and has the door to the deck which was the door Mama Cat locked. The other wall is actually the wall to the master bathroom – and the window from the bathroom overlooking the deck was open! There was a screen there, but I decided I would get the screen off somehow, hoist myself up and get into the house through the bathroom.

    Having decided what to do but not yet how to do it, I sat back on the deck chair and ate my piece of cherry pie.

    Not too much later, I started picking at the screen. I don't think I poked a hole in it; I might have just jiggled it a lot until the inside latches came loose one at a time. When Mama Cat heard the noise, she went to the bathroom window and got on the sill to watch and advise in her own special way. I could not believe the gall she had to think that I was fussing about the window so that she could get out!

    As I gave a running commentary to Mama Cat for having locked me out of the house, she watched anxiously for the moment the screen would give way and release her from being locked in the house!

     Finally the screen came off, and then the logistics of how to climb into the window and not fall head-first into the bathroom had to be worked out – I was squeezing my way in while Mama was trying to get by me. But I got in, fixed the screen and taped the latch on the storm door to the deck in the unlock position such that catpaws could not move it ever again.

     We did not go looking for adventure when the girls were gone, but sometimes adventure found Mama Cat and me!

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