The powerful afternoon thunderstorm loudly announced the arrival of the summer monsoon season here in South Florida, punctuated with a tremendous downpour, blindingly bright blasts of lightning and the deafening artillery booms of mega-volt induced thunder.
In other words, a perfect day for a little nap underneath a 2-and-a-half-ton Toyota Sequoia “Sport” Utility Vehicle.
The rain fell at such a furious rate, that I opened the garage doors so that Alice, my wife, (and only best friend that could live with me for 27 consecutive years) could make the most direct path to her SUV to avoid being drenched by the precipitous onslaught.
After backing out of the driveway in such fierce weather conditions, Alice drove a very soggy 2 miles to “Everglades” High School to retrieve our son, Justin, so that he wouldn’t have to walk home from the bus stop. “Everglades” is an appropriate name for the school, as a century ago the sawgrass where the school now stands, proudly swayed and stood fast under the natural monsoons of that era. The Everglades did not survive the onslaught of man, but on this day, nature had other things in mind for man and beast.
Justin, despite being under a school bus shelter was soaked from the rain that blew in from at all angles, except vertical. What was left of the Everglades was now all deep mud-puddles, speed bumps, stop signs, bumper-to-bumper suburban assault vehicles and a thousand-plus students, parents and vehicles, large and small – all in a hurry – and going nowhere fast in increasingly deep pools of oil and gas-stained rainwater.
Alice, relieved to have saved Justin from near certain exposure to harsh weather and lightening-related accidents, drove a few more miles further to another natural inhabitant of the former Everglades – the Miami Subs Fast Food Restaurant. Despite the rain, Alice, like all good suburban inhabitants, decided to challenge herself and proceed to the ‘drive thru’ window to order a take-home-rainy-day warm lunch.
But before Alice could make it to the ‘drive thru’ window, she, of course, had to roll down (well, press the button that lowered) the SUV’s window to enjoy the experience of shouting complicated food orders to an outdoor microphone manned by an inside fast food customer-service professional who can’t see her.
Me-ow-owwww!
Was that a cat? Stop. Listen. Look.
Nothing. She continued, “Ok, so, that’s a 12-inch meatball sub, and a large Coke…No, I didn’t say 6 inch mothballed sub!… I said, 12-inch meat” Me-ow-owwww! “-ball sub and a large Coke”.
”Did you hear that, Justin?”, inquired Alice, now with a odd sense that something, yes-it-must-be, recognition that there’s a cat near the ordering stand – near the car, in fact!
Me-ow-owwww!
”Excuse me, Mam?” again asked the fast food professional.
It was un-mistakable. Throughout the ages, mothers – of all species – know the sounds that their babies make. It had to be a cat – and only one cat at that.
It had to be Obi.
Obi? At Miami Subs? Five Miles from home? Ordering Cat Food? In the rain?
A flood of panic enveloped Alice. She wondered, “Where’d he steal the money?” Then, with clarity – if it’s Obi, then what could Obi possibly be doing here? Then, with even more clarity, it can’t possibly be Obi, he’s at home!
Alice, true to her nature, cleared her mind and took immediate emergency action.
Save the Cat! “Justin, it’s OBI”!, Alice shouted to a shocked (and VERY skeptical) son. After a few more – Me-ow-owwww’s – Justin, too, knew, however impossible it may be, that the meow was un-mistakably from Obi, as impossible as a conclusion as that could be.
Alice and Justin got out of the car and began a series of operations well known to cat lovers: the methodical triangulation of cat sounds and guessing at cat psychology to determine the location of a (determined) well-hidden cat. Surely the cat noises came from outside the vehicle. Surely the cat is behind the SUV waiting his turn to place an order for catnip, two mice (warmed), a cup of milk, and a super-sized order of fries!
The suspense, curiosity and drama (not to mention the prospects of something-different-is-happening-today) even motivated the Miami Subs Fast Food Restaurant Customer Service Professionals to LEAVE THE BUILDING to assist in the emerging emergency cat rescue operation in the drive-thru driveway. Yes! Two well-meaning and very alarmed employees came to the assistance of Alice for what will forever (at least until employee turnover kicks in) be remembered as the “The Day That A Cat Came Thru Drive Thru”.
Me-ow-owwww! Me-ow-owwww! Me-ow-owwww!
It came from the back of the SUV.
It came from underneath the back of the SUV.
It came from behind and beneath the back of the SUV.
It came from behind, beneath and BELOW the back of the SUV.
Can you see the cat? Nope. Can you hear the cat? Yep.
Where in the hell is that damn cat?
”Obi! Obi!” Alice and Justin called out. (The Miami-Subs Fast Food Customer Service Professionals wanted to scream-out ‘Obi’ too, but, didn’t want to interfere in the triangulation procedures – and, quite frankly, they weren’t t really convinced that the so-called cat was in fact, Obi Cat).
Having sought cat to this point, and having “found none”, Alice proceeded to do what most suburban women just love to do in the pouring rain; that is, in the rainy, oily, cigarette and condom littered fast food ordering driveway – to get on her hands and knees and crawl underneath her SUV and twist onto her back to face up looking at the bottom of her vehicle.
To find HER cat – HER cat – that she found as a infant kitten. HER cat, that fit in the palm of her hand when she first found him – in a parking lot – in a plastic container – alone, and dying. HER cat, the one she nursed daily with an eye-dropper filled with cat milk. HER cat that she took to school when she worked as an elementary school teacher and all the kids loved the ‘little cat’ with great joy and delight. HER cat, that every night snuggles with her in bed while she reads – and stays there, faithfully, until the early rays of dawn. HER cat that thinks the best way into the house is OVER the house, climbing the screen patio for two full stories and then climbing down one floor to peer into a window and meow to be let in. HER cat, that wakes me up every morning by trying to open the doors with his paws - flinging the door handle down repeatedly until I wake up and unlock the door. Yes, I unlock the door and Obi is smart enough to pull the handle down himself to go outside (of course, looking both ways and being very cautious and taking his sweet friggin’ cat-time).
Yes, this cat is a most beloved and special cat. This cat should be at home at 3:17pm on a rainy, thunderous Tuesday afternoon in early June in the western most suburbs of an area once collectively called ‘The Everglades’ by many today, swamp by those that came before us. This cat should be anywhere but miles from home underneath a two-and-a-half-ton V8 Toyota Sequoia SUV parked in the drive-thru lane of the Pembroke Pines Miami-Subs Fast Food Restaurant.
Yet, impossibly, he was here. Somewhere here. Crazy to be here, here.
Obi!
Alice finds Obi – behind, beneath and BELOW the back of the SUV, but ON TOP of the trans-axle! Wedged in, he is. Not wanting to let go. Not wanting to get burned by the V8’s muffler. Not wanting to fall into the water. Not wanting to ever let go and meet that very fast moving, bumpy and and oh-so-wet ‘scenery’ that unfolded below him at speeds of up to 45 mph, for over FIVE FULL MILES…
Obi.
Alice wedges herself deeper – on her back – and under the Sequoia and gets her hands on Obi Cat. I’m sure the last thing on her mind was “what am I doing at 3:17 pm on a Tuesday, in a monsoon, in the Miami-Subs drive-thru driveway, underneath my car?”. No, Alice is a great mother – and Obi was saved. She determinedly pried Obi away from his trustworthy transaxle – and mommy and baby cat were joyously reunited, there in the fast food driveway, her on her back, he in her arms, and both underneath a 2-and-a-1/2 ton vehicle under the rain and over the wet and oil-slicked, concrete driveway.
Obi is home now. He proceeded directly to the cat food, pausing briefly to check his email (sorry, just kidding). He has no wounds. He has no cuts. He has no broken bones. He has no burns. He lost no nails. No missing clumps of hair. He has streaks of axle grease across his face and his feet – and a memory that he will unlikely NEVER forget.
Obi and his mommy are now taking a nap.
In a bed.
Together.
Again.
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