Broken Doorbell

My doorbell is broken; a wonderful way to avoid solicitors. I tried to fix it after moving in. It requires an App, of course. I couldn’t get the doorbell to sync, and gave up, but I still have the app on my phone and now I get neighborhood alerts. I avoided adding neighborhood watch apps because I don’t want to read about petty grievances with messy front yards or someones trash cans, so I ignore the notifications from the doorbell app.

My cat comes-and-goes as she pleases. I won’t see her for two weeks, but then she’ll saunter in at 2am, meow loudly, making the dog run laps in excitement that is wild older sister is visiting. She jumps on my dresser and stares at me with such intent, I don’t know if she wants me to pet her or she’s plotting an attack.

In June, she must have taken to another family because she was gone. I thought she died, and was worried sick that Geoffrey would have a broken heart. I decided I’d just pretend she was alive, and I’d never tell the kids because they’re gone half the week, and will never notice. When Geoffrey leaves for college I'd retire the food dish. But my boyfriend and I were enjoying the Saharan heat one afternoon on the back porch and we heard her meow. I grabbed a flashlight and was convinced she was stuck under the deck, bending the chicken wire, telling him, “I see her!” I swear I saw her green eyes glowing in the light, but we heard another meow, I turned around, and she was walking towards us through the overgrown backyard like a tiny panther. 

I think she is mad I freaked out when she brought in a dying baby bird. She dropped the bird at my feet and instead of praising her, I swept it out the backdoor and dumped it over the fence. Or maybe she’s pissed I raise my pets Christian Scientists to make them strong. I keep her food dish above the kitchen sink, and I refill it every couple days, so I know she’s eating at night.

I received a notification from my doorbell app for a found cat, and I thought it could be her, so I decided to check it out. It was a different cat. Then I scrolled, and I saw more postings about found or missing cats that weren’t Midnight, ending on a video post of a mountain lion walking through someones backyard at 1am. I shut the app, and said, “This is why I don’t look at this shit,” trying to wipe the video from my brain.

In June, I told my sister about the cat’s disappearance, and she remembered how she lost my mom’s dog. My mom moped around crying and depressed, the entire time subtly blaming my sister for the dognapping. Then a month later, the dog showed back up, tied to the front door. My mom was overjoyed, but one morning while drinking coffee, my sister came in from working her overnight nursing shift, and my mom said, “You see how the dog is hiding his genitals, I think he’s been sexually abused.”

I wonder if my mom manifested her dog’s return. It reminds me of when Kiki was four years old, and we went to Vancouver. She left her baby blanket in the restaurant, and the next day she was devastated. We called the restaurant, and it was closed. When the taxi driver picked us up to take us to the airport we told him the story, and he said, “That’s where my son works! He’s probably there now.” And he called his kid, who said they had the blanket, and we picked it up a few hours before flying out of the country. I always think, "Of all the cabs!"

The blanket mysteriously disappeared after my ex-husband starting saying things like, “She’s too old to be carrying around that filthy blanket.” 

She became very secretive about her blanket, and would cram it under a pillow if anyone not related to her was around. Remembering the blanket, I got pissed off, and sent him a text that said, “Did you throw away Kiki’s baby blanket or just hide it?” 

He wrote back, “What blanket?” 

I replied, “The pink one. Her prized possession that you thought was making her weak and pathetic."

I’m blaming it on the heat, but I got caught up in negative thinking, so I decided to start listening to self-help audio books. It helped. The audiobooks are reminders for me not to boil over in rage when thinking about something that happened five years ago. Keeping those thoughts at bay are critical for opportunities that come knocking, otherwise I'm distracted and they’ll ring a broken doorbell. So I’ll refill my cat’s dish each morning, and not worry about a baby blanket thats been gone for five years. I’ve got more important things to do, like not think about mountain lions.