Cat between a bed and a hard place

Appeared Dec. 18, 2006

Charlie fell out of bed last night.
He made as much noise as any 15-pound Siamese who slides off a bed and becomes wedged between the bed and the nightstand.
I reached my arm over the side, looped my hand under his belly and pulled him back up on the bed.
It was kind of like the time my husband fell out of bed in a hotel on New Year’s Eve, except my husband became wedged between the bed and the wall and I couldn’t loop my hand around his belly and drag him back up. He was on his back like an upside-down turtle. Charlie was wedged standing upright like one of those little plastic reindeer on the mantel.
My husband was no easy loop-and-drag, he was more like a pull-and-tug.
It sure seems to me I’ve had an inordinate occurrence of wedging in my family.
Well, anyway, Charlie didn’t start immediately purring once safely back up on the bed last night and that scared me a little.
I was pretty sure he was just freaked out - as anyone who was sound asleep one second, a wedged plastic reindeer the next would be.
The only way he could have gotten hurt in his short fall was if he had caught - and chipped - one of the fangs that hang out of his mouth and make him look as if he has a Fu Manchu mustache.
But there were no chipped fangs and Charlie was soon lying next to me once again with his head on my pillow purring away.
He is a very cool cat (somewhat of a pest but an affectionate pest - he has pest-ed his way onto my lap as I write this) so when a friend of mine was looking for a cat, I wanted him to have a cat like Charlie.
Now this is the kind of friendly “help” that gets me in trouble - as my husband the turtle will tell you.
But I never learn, so I went in search of a Siamese on the Internet.
Purebred Siamese kittens cost about $250 so that was out of the question.
Cats from Siamese rescue groups were available for about $80 but money didn’t even become an issue here because the closest rescued Siamese was in Atlanta.
So I kept looking. I finally found a F-R-E-E Siamese - and he was in Parma, even.
I was thrilled. I told my friend and soon, he was the proud owner of a Siamese cat.
You can probably guess where this story is going from here - downhill.
The cat immediately went into hiding in my friend’s apartment. He finally found it up inside the bottom of the refrigerator. He did not loop-and-drag or pull-and-tug the creature, figuring it would come out when it was ready.
Well, it wasn’t ready 14 hours later when my friend went to work. He still held onto hope it would come out when it was ready.
Well, 24 hours passed and if the cat did get ready and come out, it didn’t use the litter box or eat its food.
Didn’t. Use. The. Litter. Box. Five words no cat owner ever wants to mutter.
It was becoming increasingly clear why this Siamese was free.
So, my friend called the cat’s former owner in Parma and she came and took it back home - back home where it lives out of doors, a little piece of information she didn’t tell me or I didn’t catch in the beginning of this episode.
Trust me, all the stories that start out with me butting into other people’s business don’t end this happily. But I sure was relieved this one did.
Now, does anyone know where I can get a Siamese -- cheap?