My wife and I are in the sunset of our lives. It's a time when we should be relaxing and enjoying ourselves. For some reason, we seldom get much of a chance to relax. Exciting things always seem to happen to us, even when nothing exciting is happening.

It was early Tuesday Morning; the hands on our Grandfather clock had passed beyond the midnight hour.  Claudia and I had stayed up watching a late movie.

Claudia looked at me and said. "Bill we haven't fed our cat." 

Our cat is a really nice animal. He's good in many ways but lacks street smarts. Consequently Claudia has been very reluctant to let him go outside. My wife observed that he liked to lie in the middle of the road and watch cars drive around him. It would appear that he had no fear of cars.

Claudia was in the midst of cat food preparation when she suddenly gave out a yell.  Our Neighbors Malamute pup was at our back door. He was a delightful dog, almost full grown. My guess is that he weighed a little over 100 pounds. He loved us. Evidently he had again broken through our fence.

"What will we do?" yelled Claudia. "The neighbors are probably asleep."

"Don't worry" I replied. "I'll return this silly dog to his owners. I'll make sure that they aren't asleep."

I grabbed a leash and I put it around the dog's neck and walked with him to my sleepy neighbors home.
On my return, I discovered Claudia standing out in the street with a flashlight. 

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Our cat got out when you opened the door to get the dog." She growled.

"Are you sure?"  I asked

My wife glared at me. "Yes, I'm sure, he isn't anywhere in the house."

I said a bad word.

I rummaged around for another flashlight and joined my wife on her cat quest. We went up and down the street calling "kitty, kitty, kitty."  We peeked over fences and looked into bushes and back yards. My estimated that it was after 2:00 AM. I was a bit nervous about our street prowling. I half expected a neighbor to call the police and complain about the noise that we were making. 

Evidently my neighbors were used to Eagle family eccentricities and no complaints were filed.

We still had no cat. No cat at all. Claudia was close to tears. She was sure that our cat would soon be road kill and that I would be retrieving a flattened animal with a scoop shovel.

It was cold, in fact it was freezing outside. My nose and hands started to feel numb.

I said "Claudia, don't worry, that silly cat will be at our door tomorrow expecting to be fed.  It's close to three and I'm tired, let's go to bed."

"My poor cat" moaned my wife.

I walked her home; she was tired, cold and very sad.  Claudia was sure that our beloved pet was no more for this world, and she was already starting the grieving process. 

As we walked up our driveway to our house, Claudia saw what appeared to be a shadow, move by our garage window.

"What's that?"  she asked.

I brightened "It's our cat. He never left the garage."

Evidently, our cat took a look at the Malamute trying to get into our house and made a beeline for the safety of our garage. He might not be street smart when it comes to cars, but he was not stupid when it involved meeting up with big dogs. Not stupid at all...

Claudia was happy, our cat was hungry, and I decided that it was time for me to go to bed.