Cat almost causing my untimely death from sheer fright...

[ZebraOwl]

Was late home from rehearsal tonight because I went to the pub afterwards as my friend (our Artistic Director's pas de deux partner from ballet school) came to rehearsal tonight & we wanted to catch up a bit.

I got home at about 2300. Apparently blond!cat doesn't want me to do that ever again & thus decided to scare me witless by suddenly bolting out of the house as I opened the front door.

My cats are indoor cats because outside terrified them so much the vet advised me not to persevere with my efforts to persuade them that the garden was a nice place to play. Am sure the reason I managed to catch the stripy little miscreant was that commando-crawling made him a bit slower (though not much) & he froze in terror just before he reached the alley at the side of the house so I was able to scoop him up & carry him back into the house.

Am so very VERY grateful that he didn't run out into the road or encounter a fox/thug!cat & that his brother didn't try to follow us but instead stayed in the hall meyowling frantically in sheer terror-horror-distress. When I got him back in Balanchine bolted away to hide under the dining table, then stress-groomed, then became frantically clingy & his eyes are only just going back to normal after being Wide With Utter Terror for ages.

Really flipping hope the silly beggar gave himself enough of a fright he'll not do it again. No idea what was behind his suddenly thinking to venture out - think he may have been looking for my brother, who splits his time between here & the university in Devon where he is a lecturer. My brother's presence is hugely variable & his long journey time means he usually gets back here at that sort of time.

I am still feeling thoroughly sick & shaky over the horrible Might Have Beens of this one. Blond!cat has been snuggled as close to me as he can get & has just about stopped shaking himself. Having Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome means I do an impressive line in over-production of adrenalin at the best of times. Just now I reckon I could drink a pint of milk & not need to use my EpiPen because I've so much self-generated adrenalin leaping about my system. (Not that I'd try. Because I'd really not want to have to explain it in A&E. And we've no Milk Of Death in the house, for that matter. And just the idea of cows' milk makes me feel rather sick. If there were a Wispa bar, in the house, now...)

Why do they do these things to us? WHY? "Here is the human that loves me & feeds me better than she does herself & spends lots of time at home in bed so I can snuggle her & she plays with me & grooms me & lets me ride up the stairs on her rucksack... I know, I will scare her witless by running outside late at night when the boy human is not here. That's a good plan."

Now if you'll excuse me, there's a corner I need to rock in while I gibber quietly. Mnyeurghle...

[thecatneuterer]

Ha ha. But I bet you anything that if you'd just kept your cool, and ignored him and even shut the door, he'd have been standing outside the door begging to be let back in in a matter of seconds.

Some of mine do that. They're not allowed out of the front, but sometimes scoot past my legs. If I go after them or try to catch them they just run away like it's some sort of game. If I ignore them and close the door they panic and scratch at the door and howl.

They do like to keep us on our toes generally though. I think they like to remind us occasionally who is in charge :)

[ZebraOwl]

During the day I might've tried that - at eleven at night with half the fox population of South East London coming to their nightly rave in our back garden, not so much... Plus he was freaked out by being outside - he really is an eejit, scaring himself almost as much as he did me: he was freaking out about finding himself In The Outside when I caught him.

On the plus side, if my hair goes white from the shock people will FINALLY stop mistaking me for a child...