Longest Week Ever in 2024

It’s been a full week without my Calico kitty. I just feel so sad. There was a bit of plot twist last night, but not for the better. I spent Friday evening canvasing the rest of my neighborhood with fliers. I probably did over two thirds of its total residences before I ran out of fliers. A couple of hours later, I got a text from one of their recipients. I’ll copy his texts below, complete with his original errors:

Him: I think I saw this cat on the left aode of Roberts Rd coming from Whitehead Rd on the lawn of someone’s yard. It was on the fourth house on the left where the white cat was, this lost cat was on the edge of the property closest to Whitehead Rd, if I’m right I want the rewars offered fo look for it now since it might go aomewhere else. My name is Jeff [last name redacted] my phone is [number redacted]

Him: “aode” “reward” “for” “somewhere”

Him: “side”

Me: Thank you, Jeff. When did you see her?

Me: If you see her again, please take a snapshot, and I may be able to confirm.

Him: Now that I think about it, it was the lawn on the fourth house on the left from the cult sack on rosewood place, look on fresh cut lawns down this road, rosewood place

Him: My phone is about to run out of battery, I saw it there on rosewood place, this is the road behind custom mobility on Whitehead rd

Him: The name of the road is rosewood pl

Him: I’m sure it was that cat because I have a really good memory I’m at student and I was walking to my friend’s house and I remember seeing it on the edge of the property looking at another white cat that was there…

Him: Try some milk or other favorite food as it looked hungry…

Him: And it was waiting for the other cat to do something??!

Him: Good luck and let me know if you find it and give me the reward!!!!

Funnily enough, I had a student my program with his name. He was a few crayons short of a box. At my school, students must take a placement exam before they can register for classes that would apply to their chosen degrees. Students who don’t score high enough must take what we call “Learning Support” courses before they can start taking most of their program level courses. Jeff was required to take both Math and English LS courses. I think he passed the Math course, but he couldn’t pass the English one. When he failed English, he wanted to contest his grade. When his professor showed me his work, it was basically gibberish. I’m pretty sure this particular Jeff is that very same student. I then discovered that Jeff had no interest in majoring in accounting. I think he might have just chosen it because it was the first option on the application. I explained that he needed to change to a different degree program for what he wanted to do, and he then became someone else’s ordeal.

I received that last text around midnight. Jeff’s tips didn’t quite add up. Jeff couldn’t remember which road on which he saw her. They weren’t adjacent to one another either. As it turns out, and as his future texts will reveal shortly, Rosewood Place is Jeff’s home street, so it’s weird he didn’t remember he allegedly saw my cat on his neighbor’s lawn. However, that detail about the other white cat leant him some credibility. Another white cat had recently been hanging around my yard, and he and Calico had developed a mildly adversarial relationship. I could imagine him coming back last Saturday, she and him getting into a fight, and him chasing her off. That said, Calico is old and has arthritis. I can’t imagine Calico running to either location Jeff mentioned. They are probably 3 to 4 miles away from my house. She would have collapsed from exhaustion before then.

Still, that was the only hope I had of getting Calico back, so I drove to both those locations to see if I could find her. Rosewood Place was a straight road, probably about 200 yards long, ending in a cul-de-sac, so I even parked my car and walked up and down it. Probably not a good idea to do in the middle of the night, but I was conceal carrying, and there was no way I was going to get to sleep without checking on that lead.

I got back home around 1:00 AM, and I was so distraught, I made a post on my church group’s Group Me, describing my ordeal, explaining what just happened, and asking for some prayers. I asked them to pray that if Calico was still alive, God would bring her to me, and if she isn’t, that God would grant me peace knowing she is in His care. Somehow, I was able to get to sleep after that, but my eyes were so burnt from all the crying I had been doing all week, I wasn’t sure I could.

This morning around 9:40 AM, Jeff and I had another text exchange:

Jeff: I charged my phone a little, did you find your pet, I’m asking because of the reward and do I get it?

Jeff: I think I saw it at [street number redacted] rosewood place

Me: Hi, Jeff. I went and checked last night after your text, and I didn’t find her. It was dark though, obviously. I’m about to go check again and distribute some fliers in that area. if I get her back, I promise I’ll give you a payout.

Jeff: Like I said I got the flier over at my friend’s on the left at the end of Roberts Road off lavender Rd, I thought I had seen it at the beginning of Roberts Rd and Whitehead but it was rosewood place, that’s where Im staying with my mother, If i was you i would check in homewood hills past the plaza where the rite aid. And that’s just in case I have seen it at both places. Good luck, let me know if I get the reward.

Jeff: Sorry [street number redacted] rosewood pl is where I stay with my mom. [This was at which point I realize he allegedly saw her just a couple of houses over from his own house, but apparently misremembered seeing her at a completely different location].

Jeff: And on the side closer to the cult sack is where I saw your cat…

I drove to FedEx and made a couple of hundred new copies of my flier, then drove straight to Rosewood Place and left them in almost every mailbox on that street. I got yelled at by one fellow who didn’t want me putting anything in his mailbox and didn’t care when I gave him my explanation. I then drove to the adjacent neighborhood Jeff mentioned, Homewood Hills, and probably hit about half the houses before calling it quits. I wanted to save a few fliers to get the rest of the houses in my own neighborhood. Like I said, I didn’t have a lot of confidence in Jeff’s lead. I did most of the remaining houses in my own neighborhood later that evening before I ran out.

I’m not sure what else I can do. Prior to last night, I was just grieving. I hate the thought of her being dead, but now I’m worried she’s alive and lost, hungry, thirsty, confused, and scared. I’m worried she didn’t wander off to die, but instead did so because she was mad at me for not giving her enough attention or tired of her old food. I’m afraid I’ll find her remains somewhere unanticipated and discover I could have saved her if I had gone about things differently. All I can do is sit around my house and be sad. The thought of doing anything I previously enjoyed just makes me feel empty and dejected. The only thing that makes me feel mildly better is sitting on the floor or laying in bed and petting Patches, but then I remember how Calico would get on the other side of me, and I’d pet both of them, then my sorrow just about negates the little happiness I’ve found.

I received a lot of positive encouragement from my church group. I kind of want to go tomorrow to be around some people who care, but every time I try to talk about what happened, even by myself in my empty house, I just break down into tears, and I don’t want to be that weirdo 40+ year old man crying about his dead/missing cat in room of people who have real problems. I feel just so flat out miserable. God, I have no idea what to do.