Dead is not the same as being on vacation!

Okay, so we have a cat.  He actually sort of adopted us many, many years ago; we are definitely not cat people but as a young cat, he got stuck on our fence and Frank saved him and so the cat just never left.  As a matter of fact, once he was down from the fence, he moseyed up to our front porch and cried for almost 24 hours straight!  Frank was like "Don't feed him or he'll never leave!" 

We fed him.

He didn't leave.

Granted, our landlord does not allow us to have indoor pets so the cat became an outdoor cat and he was fine with that.  He likes roaming the neighborhood and we came to understand that we were not the only "home" he had.  Actually, one of the times that he went on an extended "vacation", the boys were young and they were upset that the cat had disappeared.  So I put them in the car and we drove all around the neighborhood yelling "Fluffy!  Fluffy!" in hopes of finding him.  Yes, his name is Fluffy.  Actually, it's Fluffy Meowington.  So Frank came home and we're all near tears.  "The cat's gone!"  Well, Frank stepped out on to the porch and looked around and yelled "Cat!" and the darn cat came strolling out from the yard across the street and was like "Hey, how'ya doin?"

Damn cat.

Frank refused to call him Fluffy.  He thought it was a stupid name and degrading for the cat.  Sure, like the cat has an opinion.  Anyway, long story short (sort of) the cat has been MIA for a few weeks now and I have a feeling that this is no longer a "vacation" but that he may be dead.  He doesn't normally stay away this long and tonight it was just me and the boys at home and I'm like "Has anyone noticed that the cat's been gone for a while now?"  And they were both very blase about the whole thing and Nick was like "Oh, he's probably off on one of his vacations".  Michael went out and put some food in the cat's bowl in hopes that he'll return.

I'm a little sad.  As I said, I'm not really a cat person and actually, I'm a bit allergic to cats so I was never particularly close to Fluffy but it would make me sad if he's actually gone.  I wish that the boys actually had a little bit more feeling about the whole situation.  

I'm about ready to get in the car and start driving around...