Paha Runs Away

Paha was just weaned from his mother when I picked him out of the litter at my aunt’s farm. I got him to keep me company in my new house. He is the first pet that I’ve ever been solely responsible for. He followed me everywhere in the house, watched TV with me, and slept curled up on my shoulder at night. He was my baby.

Last summer, my good friend, Heidi, and I drove to the vet, twenty miles away, to pick up Paha. I had had him fixed and declawed, and knew that he wouldn’t be too happy with me. We picked him up, and about half way home, decided to go swimming in the Missouri River. We took a four-mile hidden road to a secluded swimming beach that we knew of.

I parked my car in the shade, leaving each window opened about two inches. I figured that since Paha was a huge, fat cat, two inches would be virtually impossible for him to get out of. I was right there. As we were walking away, Paha was already searching the car for an escape route. I really underestimated him.

Heidi and I were only in the water for about a half-hour when I walked back to check on my little guy. He was gone. Two of the windows had been rolled down just a bit further. Paha was not a dummy. I searched the car repeatedly with some shred of hope that he was just hiding under a seat. He was nowhere to be found though. Tears instantly came as the panic quickly set in. I ran back down to the beach, recruiting Heidi for our two-person search party.

We yelled for him for almost two hours. We walked through the woods, getting nasty cuts and poison ivy, yelling and then listening for even the tiniest movement. We drove around in my car with Heidi hanging out the window, yelling Paha’s name. We didn’t even catch a glimpse of him.

I was a bawling mess. I was absolutely sure that I’d never see my baby Paha again. I drove to my Grandpa’s house to get some advice. He told me to go back, park in the same spot, and see what happened. So, Heidi and I went back out to the river, with two more to add to our search party, our boyfriends.

We waded around in the water for half an hour before I went up to look for him. It had now been almost four hours since the brat had gone AWOL. Walking up to the car, I was thinking how my house would be so empty without Paha wrecking havoc in it. I walked around to the side of my car, and there he was.

Paha, in his entire “royal” splendor, sprawled out on his back in the shade, fat oozing out on either side of him barely held in by his skin. He had his paws spread way out to the side of him, looking like a picture of a cartoon cat that had just been run over by an ACME steamroller. When he noticed that I was there, he pulled his head up ever so slightly, giving me a look that said, “Where the heck have you been?!”

I was overjoyed! I picked him up and hugged him as tight as I could, then put him right into the pet taxi that I had bought on the way back out there. Joy soon turned into anger, and I scolded him. He didn’t care. He had let me know that he was mad for sending him away to the vet. I learned that I didn’t have to worry about this cat staying away for too long.

The next few times that Paha sneaked out the door, or pushed the screens out of the window, I didn’t worry quite as much. He also made me think about my friends. I realized that my friends were in some ways just like him. They may go their own way for a while, but the ones that are real friends always come back. I wonder if Paha knows the lesson that he taught me.