November 8, 2006
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Monday several of my students were 10 minutes late getting to a lecture class. I was told that they were trying to rescue a cat from the boat. For now, someone is storing a skiboat near the dumpster at the school. The kids swore there was a cat stuck in it somewhere, but no one could find it.
So this evening I was leaving from school rather late because several students stayed for tutoring. My husband had parked his van near the dumpster, and when I went out to it, I definitely heard the howls of a lost cat. We just couldn’t leave it especially with my knowing it had been stuck for a few days. So we searched the boat with no luck. It would stop crying when we were noisy, but when we were quiet it started again. We simply could not figure where it could be. With Nick under the tarp in the boat and me outside, we realized that the cries were coming from the dumpster. Digging through the bags of school trash and boxes brought no result. We stood in the dark and listened for it to cry again. Its heart-breaking cries sounded like they were coming from under the dumpster! Surely that was not possible! We looked all around it, but there was no other place it could be
So Nick found a good sized rock in the field nearby and a six-foot board that had been left beside the fence separating the play ground and parking lot. With these, he levered the dumpster up enough to shine a flashlight under it. Amazingly, there was a tiny grey kitten crouched in the space next to the bottom brace in the center. It had been crouched in a three-inche space between the ground and dumpster.. The dumpster had been partly on the paved parking lot and partly in the dirt. There was no gap anywhere for the little creature to get out or in for that matter! I chased it out with a stick, and it bolted under the lowest car in the parking lot. There it howled pitifully.
It took us another half hour of chasing it back and forth under five or six cars before I finally grabbed a foot on the top of a wheel and pulled the terrified kitten out. By that time it was covered with motor oil and shaking uncontrollably. Poor thing. Its traumas were not over. I had to bathe her as soon as I got her home. She is a silver-gray cat with gray eyes. Very pretty. She is bathed, fed, and sleeping on Nick’s lap as he dozes in the recliner.
Tomorrow I’ll take her to school in a cage and see who wants a miracle cat. I cannot imagine how she got herself stuck under a dumpster and didn’t get crushed! She has no injuries that I can tell. Well, she has certainly used up one of her lives, eight to go!
Comments (6)
Wow! That sounds a teensy bit like how I got my Pumpkin. All of his family was dead and then, to top of his trauma, he had to endure a bath. He smelled like dead animal… Glad you had patience and perseverance!!
Sweet story! Nice that you guys stuck it out & saved the poor kitty. Just for the record, though – I’m not much of an animal lover. Just in case anyone asks.
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Hurray for you. Maybe this is a gift from Alice. The little one sounds beautiful. I personally think you should keep her. After all she is a survivor and that means a lot. Seems to me she has adopted Nick. Think about it!!
Marilyn O
Goddess bless you for rescuing that poor wee one. Care for it well.
RYC: most cases are not this draining & I really do love me job. It’s the perfect meshing of ministry & profession. We are His hands, but He is the one who ultimately holds them from the inside out. He uses folks like me & you, consistent in the lives of children, to make good deposits into their lives with the hope that something good will grow…something. Thank you for a wise word; always a wise word.
Oh I bet you are the hero of that class.
Heather