The Saga of Sooty and the ‘happy cat lady’

The Saga of Sooty. To keep it all alliterative I’ll call Sooty’s protector Susan. I once gave her a Crazy Cat Lady frig magnet. She’s my direct opposite — I’m just not a cat person. Therefore every cat I’m around has to cozy up to me. They must think they can change my mind.

The neighbor’s cat kept having her kittens in Susan’s barn. So she decided to do something about it. She took the cats that had collected over time to the vet and had them all spayed and neutered. That stopped the continuous supply of felines. Now she had 17 cats. This made her the Happy Cat Lady.

Sooty — an all gray with yellow eyes, one off center — and his brother Smudge were real mama’s boys — until they lost her. Living in the country there are all sorts of reasons a cat might disappear. Eventually Susan, despite her best efforts, was down to nine. For three years, Sooty lived the fat cat life in Susan’s barn.

He had toys. He had his favorite canned food. He even had a heated bed. In fact, the barn boasts 12 heated beds amid a tangle of extension cords. The other day when my friend waxed eloquent about these beds I had to interrupt her, “Please don’t tell me I just heard you say your cat beds have flannel sheets.”

With all this cush cat comfort you’d think Sooty would never leave the barn. But he did. Was it adolescent rebellion? A thirst for adventure? Whatever the reason Sooty found his way up the hill and through the woods to our house.

At first he was just a gray streak if he caught sight of us. If he didn’t know he was being watched we’d see him prowling the bushes. Or leaping up a stone wall to hide in the dark recess beneath the deck. No heated bed with flannel sheets under there, I’ll guarantee.

We got used to having him around. He’d scatter his hunting trophies here and there. Fine with me — as mice and I get along far worse than cats and I. Eventually he’d show himself, but you’d better not come too near. He must have recognized a fellow adolescent in our visiting granddaughter because she got the closest.

A few days after he first went missing Susan was over — and happened to mention she was short a cat. “Is it gray?” I asked. Sure enough, we figured out it was Sooty. I reassured her he was doing just fine.

She knew we were okay with him — and I regularly reported Sooty sightings — so she left him to hang out with us indefinitely.

That is until she began to think of fall — and colder nights. She wanted him back in his warm bed.

Thus began daily trips to our house to talk him into coming home. He’d roll around in the grass with her, but stayed skittish. Eventually we rigged a cage trap — enticing him in with canned cat food.

This morning Secretive Sooty was good and caught. He’s back in the barn. According to the Crazy Cat Lady he knew he was home and as if he didn’t have to be on high alert out on his own any longer, he curled up and went to sleep.

The mystery question is why did he leave in the first place. And was it a failed experiment. Or did he like independent living — providing for himself. Being his own man.

We’ll keep an eye out for him. He might have known exactly what he was doing. Being a cat he, of course, felt compelled to trespass in a “no cats” zone.

He might have had a mission. To change my mind. And maybe he did.