Several years ago, I had the distinct pleasure once of keeping my mother's cat Sinbad for 6 days while she was out of town. We decided it would be easier for her to bring me Sinbad (I live in a different town and at the time was going to college, so couldn't drive the half- hour to spend time with him). During the day, he was fine. He'd sit in the floor-to-ceiling window that I had and look out at all the movement. As a "country cat" visiting the "big city" (just an apartment parking lot, but more activity than HE had ever seen), he found it endlessly fascinating.

And then, there were the nights.

On the first night, I had JUST started to drop off when I hear this....sound. The closest thing I can come to describing it would be a banshee (ban-sidhe, however you want to spell it) with a sore throat. He was WARBLING this hideous sound.
PRRRRRR***OOOOOOOOOWWWWWRRRRRRR***. He did this ALL. NIGHT. LONG.
I tried EVERYTHING from cuddling to threatening to spanking to feeding to leaving the lights on. NOTHING. WORKED. For 5 days, I had to get whatever sleep I could steal between his horrible shrieks of loneliness.

On the 6th night, he was FINE. My mother, of course, doesn't believe this to this day. How could her sweet adorable fluffy-wuffums POSSIBLY make a sound quite capable of waking the dead? I must have been exaggerating.

Copyright © Gary Henderson
January 27, 1998