The Perils of Being a Trial Widow

So, at the risk of opening myself up to home invasion burglers and such, I'm going to report that Todd has jaunted off to the wilds of Hardin County for a trial which is expected to take three weeks to complete, leaving me all alone -- and lonely -- to hold down the for.  It's a bit worrying, because the last time he left home for a trial, which was just a couple of months ago, all the proverbial hell broke loose around here.

See, before I came along, Todd had a cat, Tom.  And Tom survived the arrival of not one, but two dogs to the household.  But he was really always Todd's cat.  After living with me for eight or nine years, he started to let me pet him, but only if I were lying down.  Standing up, I scared him.

Todd had been gone in trial for about a week when Tom found his way out of the basement door.  I wasn't terribly worried at first, because he was kind of indoor/outdoor cat, but he stayed gone for a long time.  For days and days I left the basement door open, hoping he would come home.

On one of those days, I made plans to meet my mother in Richmond for lunch, and becaue it was supposed to rain, I left my spoiled dogs, Penny and Sam, in the house.  I got halfway to Richmond, and got a phone call from the electric company that he was there to fix the water line (which had conveniently sprung a leak the minute Todd left town, resulting in a no-water house for several days) but wasn't going to get out of his truck with "that dog" in the yard barking at him.

"Wait, what?  There's a dog in my yard?"

"Yes, a big black dog, and he looks like he's going to bite me."

Unfortunately, I couldn't really reassure the guy that if it was, indeed, my dog, he didn't have to worry, because yes, if it was Sam, he would most definitely bite some random LG&E guy.  (Beware, prospective home invasion burglers.)  So I turned all the way around and came home, where Sam had let himself BACK in the house through the open basement and looked me in the eye and flat-out LIED about being outside in the first place.

The next night, after scouring our block yelling for Tom with no luck, I went to bed, Sam and Penny tucked into their beds next to me, and we all went to sleep.  Then, I woke up around 3 a.m. to the sound of a barking dog.  One that sounded strangely familiar.  I turned on the light to see Penny blinking at me, but no Sam.  So I ran outside -- in my NIGHTIE -- to find Sam barking his fool head off, running up and down the street.

I think he was looking for Tom.  And I think at some point, he decided that Todd was also AWOL, because he was just crazy until Todd came home, escaping the house left and right, running away from me, and generally actin' a fool.   It was a mess.

Finally, Todd finished the stinkin' trial and came home, and Sam calmed down to his normal self (allowing Penny to go back to being the "bad" dog of the house).  But, sadly, Tom never came home.  Ever.  And it's still very sad and I still feel guilty somehow -- I'm pretty convinced that Tom decided Todd was never coming home and living with me was just too horrendous to contemplate, so he ran away.

You can't really blame me for being kind of nervous now with Todd being gone.  If he comes home this time to a missing pet . . . well, it's going to be tough to explain.  If you happen to see any loose animals in your neighborhood, CALL ME.  It might be one of mine, missing their Dad.