My girl cat, Belle, is an independent soul, despite the fact that she looks so pretty and cuddly. After I feed her breakfast in the morning she tends to find a spot in the house for a nap. Maybe she'll come visit me in the evening if she's in the mood. (It's not that she's shy, but she's just got her own life going on.)
One night she got out and left our apartment building. I didn't see her at breakfast and just figured she's off doing her own thing. Then I didn't see her in the evening... and I realized she'd been missing since at least the previous night.
I looked, called, and began to hunt the neighborhood, posted signs, stuck flyers in mailboxes, ran from a raccoon I thought was rabid... no cat for about a week.
This was the first week of October 2009. We had a freak snowstorm. My neighbor knocked on my door at 6:30 a.m. and said there was a cat downstairs going nuts. She'd come home! Apparently, she didn't want to deal with the combination of wet and cold. My first words to her were "Where ya been, stupid?" as she bolted up the stairs to me.
I was so glad to see her, but she didn't look dirty and wasn't hungry. I noticed she was thirsty and tired (we curled up and took a long nap together)--I'm not sure where she was hiding, but I think she was probably raiding the cat food left out by the neighborhood cat lady.
Her friend Flower and I really missed her. She is the salsa in our taco of a family!