Dear Neighbor: your cat

Dear Neighbor,


I have been noticing your "Missing Cat" posters that you put up along the river. Let me say right from the start that I have no firm news as to the whereabouts of your cat. But I'll admit I have a bad feeling about it, and I don't think any good news concerning your cat will be coming your way. If your signs and your cat were back off the river, in among the neighborhood houses, you might still have a chance, but I never see cats roaming around by the river. I'm pretty sure that's because the river foxes eat all the cats that foolishly wander that way. The river foxes are pretty well gorged on cats, but, alas, they are never too gorged to not make room for just one more juicy cat, like yours. I mean, it's not like these foxes can chow down on chickens. There aren't any chickens around here, and no fox in the world could take on one of those five foot tall river turkeys that hang out up and down our section of the Mississippi. So outside of a sluggish squirrel or two, I'm afraid your cat is it.

Sorry.

I did want to talk to you about your signs though. Your signs, which look to be common black and white copies on common black and white copy paper, are, no surprise, already falling apart. The poor resolution photo is of such an inferior reproduction that it could be any of a dozen cats that I might see on my daily walks. What I am really saying is that I don't think your missing cat signs really denote seriousness on your part. Looking at your two-hour old, falling apart, poorly made Xeroxes I get merely the pretense that you care about your cat, but I don't, in any way, feel that you care about your cat. If, by some freakish chance, your cat had not been eaten by foxes, or perhaps by a stray coyote, or even an ambitious raccoon, and I found your cat, I'm not so sure I'd even give it back to you. I might keep your cat, where it would be loved and cared for, and not wantonly lost and fed to wild animals. If I did find your cat, not that I'd likely know it was yours from your low quality black and white reproduction of a picture of it, I might choose to care for it myself. And if, tragically, I somehow managed to lose your cat, I would put up quality, proper signs, on coated, maybe even laminated, card stock, with good pictures in color, and possibly even a reward, rather than a handful of cheap xeroxes designed to fill in the few pathetic hours between the moment when your cat disappeared and the moment so shortly thereafter where you can forget your cat forever.

Anyway, good luck finding your cat. I'll keep an eye out nevertheless. And I hope you find this message to be of some assistance in your search.


Your neighbor,


F. Calypso