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The Adventure of the Missing Cat [Greg Laden's Blog]
Sometimes you just know something is going to happen, and then it happens. And if that doesn’t happen to you enough, try some confirmation bias, that always works! I have a friend who just got a new cat and at the same time moved into a new house, and one of the first thing that happened was that the cat disappeared. The Cable Guy had been in and out and it was assumed the cat had escaped that way. At this point, I don’t think anyone is 100 clear on what happened, but about a day after the cat vanished it re-materialized. Personally, I think it was in the Cosmic Sock Drawer.
This reminded me of a story. One day many years ago in a galaxy far far away (The is a euphemism for “before Amanda”) we got this cat named George. Everything was just like that … as in we had this cat named George … for months, then I went away for a few months, to Africa, to do search for ancient fossils and stuff. My Significant Other would occasionally send an email, and we would even chat on the phone now and then, and initially I would hear a story about the cat, and a story about the dog each time. Then one day the stories about the cat stopped.
A couple of weeks went by without any stories about the cat and then one day we were on the phone and there was a story about the cat again. So, Sherlock Holmes like, I said, “George was in the garage for the last 10 days, wasn’t he?”
Silence. More silence. Then, “How did you know?”
I had noticed that every time the garage door was opened, which was rare (we never put the car in there), George would run in and in order for me to close the door again I had to get him out. This had been discussed but I was pretty sure I was the only person in the household who was fully tuned into the fact that George did this. When mentions of George the Cat stopped in the irregular updates, I inferred he had gone missing. That could have been for a lot of reasons. But when he reappeared a while later, I realized the most likely scenario was temporary incarceration. The actual period of entrapment was about a week, during which time George would have eaten all the mice in the garage then gotten hungry for a few days. Confirmation bias: In a post hoc world, it makes for a great story!
My friend’s cat might have a secret place she hides. I wonder if it will ever be discovered? Quite likely not.
2012-12-20 09:41:40
Source: http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/12/20/the-adventure-of-the-missing-cat/
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