K. This isn’t even a funny story. It’s just really stupid.

When I was a kid we lived in this Ivory Home development and we had some cuh-razy neighbors. I don’t remember everything that they did, but I do remember that before they got busted for dealing drugs, they adopted a tiny kitten. I really mean tiny. So tiny that it could fit through a single hole in the chain link fence. I know, because that’s what it did every day.

This kitten was cute but also kind of dumb. And I’m only saying that because it would fall into our window well pretty much biweekly. Once it was stuck there, it would scratch on the window and meow until we did something about it.

Now the thing was at our house we were not permitted to go into any of the window wells since it was a Black Widow Metropolis. So we would have to get either Mom or Dad to climb in there and rescue it.  Sometimes the same second that we would dump it on the other side of the fence it would jump back through to our side. Maybe it was trying to make a better home for itself. I don’t know.

ANYWAYS. So one summer night, lil’ ol’ high school me was asleep in my bed, when suddenly I heard some distinct scratching from the outside of my window.

Most people would think that it was a tree branch or something. On a good day, I would assume it’s the girl from The Ring. Whatever. But you know when you’re half awake and your dream brain kicks in with it’s thread-bare logic?

I sat up out of bed with a thought that I hadn’t had since I was nine… A cat fell in my window well. 

Now, at this point I could A) Open the blinds and see what is making the sound. B) Why the eff would a cat be in there? Just go back to sleep and forget about it. But no. I opted for C) wake up my mom to save the cat. For I cannot, for I am but a child.

My poor mother gets out of bed, shuffles down into the basement and opens up my blinds (something that a sixteen-year-old should be capable of). Nothing is there. I point out the motion sensor light like a true Sherlock though. The cat MUST HAVE jumped back out. See sensor light? See logic and reason? See me so smart? Mom’s like whatevs and goes back to bed.

THE NEXT MORNING I’m carpooling to work with my best friend Greg and WHAM. It all comes back to me. And if you couldn’t tell from my needlessly long blog posts, I love a weird story. So I immediately tell him all about it. This cat fell into my window well last night and by the time my mom and I checked it out… it jumped back out. OoooOOoooooh.

I tell freaking EVERYONE about this, okay. All my coworkers, my boss, random people I hardly knew. I even told the big HS crush, because of course I did. A cat scratching at my window, wow, wasn’t he impressed. And quite frankly my desperation with him alone has generated six or seven other embarrassing stories. (Gosh, at least.) But that’s another Thursday.

So anyway, a whole work day has gone by of me blabbering on about this. Greg and I are outside painting. For some reason, I’m still on it, like woah dat cat tho. Can you even believe a cat fell in my window well?

He replies with, “Yeah and that cat’s name is Greg and Kayla.”

Yep. So my two besties were scratching at my window and gave up when I refused to open the blinds … AND he let me tell everyone that it was a stupid cat. All day. In great detail.

I threw my paint at him. All the paint.