What with the fireworks going off around the way and us rigging the trap in hopes of putting an end to Bink being AWOLÂ for coming on four months, I slept in disturbed and anticipatory fits and starts last night, and finally decided to rise at 3:36 a.m to find Venus confined beautifully within the frame of a bedroom window pane and to see if our efforts to capture the wayward cat had been successful.
They had. About 50 minutes earlier according to the timestamp on the patiocam, but probably the trap’s door had been triggered awhile longer given that both dry and wet food bowls are empty in the pic:
I didn’t quite know if Bink would freak when I came out the back door, but there was only one way to find out, and surprisingly enough when he saw me he remained calm and just called out several of his trademark big-eyed imperative meows (they sound like “manh!) which in this case translated to “Come get me out of here!”
I’d forgotten how much I missed that sound.
Catching him was the first part of the plan and executed perfectly. But I hadn’t really figured on what to do next, so I winged it. Picking up the cage I brought it inside much to the curiosity of Ranger, Pepper and Jiggy.
In the kitchen I considered getting him out there and carrying him to the bedroom, but I decided not to give Bink the opportunity to claw at me on the way up the unfamiliar new stairs to the totally foreign second floor so instead I trundled the trap and Bink up there with the other animals in tow.
Setting the ungainly thing down under the window stirred Susan from her sleep and when I softly told her “Bink’s home” she abruptly sat up in bed and got out, shooing the other animals out of the room and closing the doors.
Opening the trap’s door I expected Bink to make a break for it under the bed, but he stepped slowly out and paused allowing me to pick him up. It was nice to hold him close to my chest for the first time in so long.
In between hugging and nuzzling him, Susan noted that he still had his collar but that it was noticeably looser than it had been. Beyond some weight loss, Bink looked healthy and relatively clean and certainly no worse for his self-imposed exile, and in minutes we were all back in bed and on the receiving end of a purring Bink’s affectionate headbutts and snuggles.
I’d forgotten how much I missed receiving those almost as much as Bink had forgotten how much he missed giving them.
Welcome home Bink!
UPDATED (7:24 a.m.): As if he’d never left!
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