Houdini Cat

At my old apartment, we had a roof deck. We lived on the top floor, and the deck was up a ladder and through a hatch. When we first got my cat Dixie, we decided to get her a leash and buy some clothesline to fix up a sort of cat run on the roof, so the little urban kitty could enjoy some outdoor time.

Dixie ended up hating the leash, but was actually quite well-behaved off the leash on the roof, so we ended up bringing her up with us and letting her hang out and enjoy her freedom. She loved it-- every time the door opened, she'd try to dash out, at times succeeding. She'd dash down the first set of stairs, then hang out abashedly, rubbing against the metal spindles of the stairway railing.

She loved being outside so much, in fact, that one day she decided to make her escape.

It was a lovely morning, mid-July, during the only month of summer weather in New York. I awoke happily, sunshine streaming in the window. Rolling over to my left side, I looked out the window, taking in the beautiful day.

Like most apartments in New York, the window looked out onto our fire escape. Metal safety bars outside the window had a pop-out for an air conditioner. We had put a flower box on top of the pop-out, and the morning glories had finally started to bloom.

My gaze drifted to the flower box to check the morning glories' progress. I saw something that didn't belong.

It took me a minute to determine what this figure was. It looked like... a cat. There was a cat sitting in the flower box. I looked more closely. It was a Dixie-shaped cat. In the flower box. OUTSIDE. Four stories up. What the...??!!

Sitting up suddenly, I yelled, "Dixie!"

And the Dixie-shaped cat jumped into the window and onto the bed, rubbing against me in greeting.

Our windows opened from the top. The damn cat, at some point during the night, had figured out how to open the screen, dragging it down with her claws and releasing herself into freedom. Who knows how long she'd been hanging out on the fire escape, four stories up.

Maybe she didn't use up one of her nine lives that day, but with the fright she gave me, I most certainly did.