Jeneration X: One Reluctant Adult's Attempt to Unarrest Her Arrested Development

by Jen Lancaster

  Oh, the screaming that followed.

  Fletch wandered outside then, asking, “Hey, what’s with all the shouting?” When I showed him, he paled and made the excuse that there was something urgent requiring his attention inside the house. If the predicted zombie war has anything to do with small, dead amphibians, Fletch isn’t going to be quite the warrior he envisions.

  I tried to keep the hollering to a minimum as I scooped them out and chucked netful after netful towards the woods. In the middle of my gruesome task, I had to shuffle the dogs into the house.

  “All finished?” he asked, looking relieved.

  “Nope,” I replied. “Libby was snarfing up frog carcass as though cuisses de grenouilles were her new favorite dish.” That’s when Fletch decided he needed to go out for more ice.

  Fifteen increasingly screamy minutes later, I successfully strained the tiny bodies out of the Dead Sea… or so I thought. That’s when I spotted the sole survivor, tucked away inside the hollow core of a fun-noodle like a small, web-footed Anne Frank hiding from the German Security Police, otherwise known as chlorinated water.

  Gingerly, I liberated her orange foam life preserver from the water, placing it on the other side of the yard, and breathed a little sigh of relief as she hopped towards the wood line. Then I set up the hose to ripple the surface of the pool, hoping to signify danger to any other mini-frogs currently lurking in the grass.

  So, yeah, other than the Frog-o-caust, the power outage was fine.

  After the electric kicks on, I decide against running the air-conditioning, opting to air the stink out of the joint. One of the best parts of moving out of the city is being able to open a window without encouraging unwanted visitors, be they rats or homeless people or criminals. [I’ve battled all three.]

  I leave the door open between the kitchen and the screened porch so the cats can enjoy the weather, too. They’re happy to hang out on what we call their “catio” all day, lazing on the couch while glowering at chipmunks and letting the sun warm the downy fur on their bellies.

  I keep the dogs inside because I don’t want them eating any more frogs. I’m surprised not to see the cats on the porch, but the dogs are out there and sometimes Libby annoys them. Although she’s gentle, she’s yet to figure out the concept of personal space, so she’s often on the receiving end of a few good swats.

  A couple of hours later I come inside to shower. As I pass the spare bedroom on the way to the master, I notice something’s askew. Upon further inspection, I realize the problem. The screen’s been removed and it’s five feet away in the rosebushes.

  What the…?

  How did…?

  Clearly no one broke in because we’re home and the dogs would have lost their minds. And I know the screen was securely attached to the window because that’s the kind of thing I’m fairly neurotic about, kind of like when I check three times to make sure the iron’s unplugged. [Solution? Never iron!]

  That’s when I realize that our little family is missing three feline members.

  Oh, no.

  No, no.

  My cats can’t get out. My cats have never gotten out. Never. Not one of the six cats I had before the Thundercats ever made an unauthorized exit. I’ve now owned cats for twenty years and nobody’s ever escaped, sort of like Stalag 13 on Hogan’s Heroes. [Whether or not the old cats had an entire secret bunker set up under the house is still in question.] I have a perfect record. If I were a factory, my sign out front would read: This Organization Has Gone 7300 Days Without an Incident. I employ Constant Vigilance™; this shit does not happen on my watch.

  I immediately break into a sweat. I scream for Fletch, shut the window, and conduct a thorough whole-house search for the Thundercats. None of them are in any of their usual spots—between the tasseled curtains and the sliding glass door, inside the lining of the couch, on top of the Zombie War boxes in the basement. They’re nowhere to be found.

  I throw on a pair of shorts and shoes and we spend the whole afternoon calling them and combing the woods around the house. We’re surrounded by trees on all sides except for the narrow path that winds from the road down to the house.

  The road.

  NO!

  These guys haven’t seen any road for two years. And even though we’re tucked away behind all the trees, ours is a fairly busy street and we’re not far from the highway. What’s going to happen if they decide to cross? They don’t know to look both ways. The idea of finding one of them by the side of the road makes me feel ill. We worked so hard to get the feral out of them that now I’m afraid they can’t take care of themselves.

  Also?

  EVERYONE ON THIS ROAD IS DRIVING TOO FAST.

  There are cats in these woods! Be careful, you assholes in your zippy cars! Give ’em a BRAKE. I stand at the end of my drive, hands on my hips, glowering at everyone going over fifteen miles an hour. It doesn’t help me find the cats, but it makes me feel a little better.

  A couple of hours into our search, we spot Odin in the woods to the west of us but he runs away because he thinks we’re scary monsters. The fact that I’m sobbing hysterically probably doesn’t help.

  When we finally come in, we’re covered in bug bites and we’re all slashed up from the brush. Fletch calls our vet to see what our next move is and to confirm that their microchip information is up-to-date. The vet explains that the cats will likely just come home when they’re bored or hungry and all we need to do is set out some tuna and they should turn up.

  This? I paid the price of a used car on cat upkeep and this is the advice I get? For what we spent, I want the whole veterinary office up here in S.W.A.T. gear and for us to make a human chain and comb the woods inch by inch. Tuna? Come on!

  We set out the tuna and then Fletch decides to retrace the cats’ steps. “We have to think like a cat,” Fletch tells me.

  “Okay, would you rather bang open some cabinets or throw up in the cleaning ladies’ shoes?” I ask.

  “Shh, give me a minute. I’ll figure this out,” he replies.

  I don’t understand how one of them got the screen off because they’re sturdy; I test-push them all the time and they won’t budge. I’d have never opened the windows if I didn’t trust them to hold.

  Fletch pores over the point of exit. “Aha!” he exclaims.

  “DO YOU SEE THEM?” I shriek.

  “No, but I figured out what happened. Look here.” He points at the body of a dead chipmunk and then another a few feet down, plus a stiff mouse ten feet past that.

  “Oh, God.” Tears spring to my eyes when I see the furry little victims. Can every woodland creature please not DIE up here today? Hey, Bambi and Thumper! Stay away from my yard or face certain doom! Tell your friends!

  He continues. “They must have seen all the rodents and it was too much. My guess is they all worked together to bash out the screen, which is why it flew into the roses and then they went on their killing spree.” Fletch points out where the hedges are trampled on the side of the house and the flattened daylilies. “My Boy Scout training tells me that’s where they left the protection of the side of the house.”

  “And then where did they go?”

  Fletch looks puzzled. “I don’t know. I wasn’t a very good Boy Scout.”

  “Do you want me to keep crying?” I demand.

  After more searching and another bout of hysterics on my part, Fletch convinces me to go inside with him. “All we can do right now is wait. They’ll come back. They’ve got it too good here not to come back.”

  “What if they don’t? What if they’re hurt or they decide they like the taste of freedom too much? I cannot lose five goddamned cats to death and attrition in one year. Do you understand me? I can’t do it. This will be the straw that breaks and has thus far prevented me from being The Crazy Cat Lady. This is what’s going to earn me a spot on Animal Hoarders.”

  Fletch grasps me by my shoulders. “Jen, it’s going to be okay. I promise you we will get them back. Whatever it t
akes, we’ll get them back.”

  Fletch tries to distract me with a late dinner and free rein of the remote control but I can’t eat and I’m not interested in TV. I mean, I know that they’re just cats and in the scheme of things, kittens are pretty much free… at least until you take them to the vet. Plus, they’d probably prefer to live in the wild anyway.

  Despite the fact that I equate the cats with being my children, it’s so not the same. As untethered as I feel right now, I have to wonder what happens to families who have to deal with a real missing child, and not just a furry surrogate. I feel awfully self-indulgent right now, wallowing in my own unhappiness. I can’t even imagine what parents must go through; it’s unthinkable. Part of why we never opted for children is that I couldn’t handle it if anything ever went wrong. I’m already so neurotic and controlling that if I had to worry about a tiny person’s life, I fear I’d go over the edge. My constant anxiety and worst-case-scenario-ing would consume me.

  Angie, mother to four healthy, happy sons, says you eventually learn to balance the need to protect your kids with their need to explore boundaries, but I wouldn’t be capable. I’d want them in a full set of pads and a helmet and I wouldn’t ever want them out of my sight. I would be the poster child for helicopter parents everywhere. [Yes, there would be leashes. Laugh at me all you want in the mall, but I’m not letting these guys wander away.]

  My children would likely resent me for my overprotection and we’d all be miserable. Plus, since I can’t even keep a damn cat safe, apparently, I’m sure I’d be a huge failure. The whole secret to my success is avoiding anything I wouldn’t immediately be good at; ergo I’m never going to be anyone’s mother.

  No, let me rephrase that.

  I plan to be good at catching these damn cats, so after dumping additional tuna juice and handfuls of catnip all over the front step, I sit by the door and watch and wait.

  Not more than ten minutes after I rebait the trap, Chuck Norris appears out of the bushes!!

  Opening the front door startles him, but the lure of the tuna is too great and I’m able to scoop him up while he stuffs his maw with fish. I’m somewhere between euphoric and devastated—I’m thrilled to have him back, but Chuck’s the ringleader, so I sort of thought he’d bring everyone with him.

  Chuck appears no worse for wear. Actually, he seems a bit smug.

  Hope you enjoyed your walkabout, you little asshole, because it is never, ever happening again. I lecture Chuck on how he’s lost “catio” privileges before I resume my vigil by the door.

  Every few minutes I leave my perch to go outside and call the others. Earlier I walked up and down the wood line with an armful of cat food cans, willing the sound of opening them to bring them running. Finding this unsuccessful, I left all the open cans out there for the coyotes so they’d be full and wouldn’t need to eat the tender young Thundercats.

  About an hour later, I notice a gray ball of fluff in the darkness. Odin! It’s sweet little Odin! He’s come home! Carefully I pry open the door and attempt to grab him, but Odie’s way too skittish to stand still. He immediately streaks out into the darkness. But that’s good news because it means his instincts are to come back. Now all I have to do is convince him I’m not a scary monster.

  I get Fletch and we both strap on our headlamps and begin to sweep the bushes. “You see anything?” I ask.

  “Something over here has one and a half lasers. Unless there’s another creature who’s had eye surgery, I’m looking at Odie. Here’s what we’re going to do—I’ll flush him out and then you grab him,” Fletch says, cutting back behind the lilac bushes.

  But every time Fletch herds Odin in my direction, he gets spooked and dashes under the boxwood hedges. I’m afraid we’re terrifying him, so I insist we speak in super-soothing tones. “Odie, sweetie, please come to your mama because she loves you,” I beg.

  Fletch adds, “Nice, nice, little Odie, please go to your mama because I’m being eaten alive by mosquitoes and I’m about to pass out from blood loss, okay, good boy?”

  “Stop that! He understands sarcasm,” I hiss.

  “He’s afraid of paper bags and the dishwasher and thinks we’re scary monsters,” Fletch replies. “Sarcasm isn’t even in his top ten of what bothers him.”

  After a solid hour of playing cat to Odin’s mouse, we decide to take a break. “Maybe if we sit on the step and toss tuna to him, we can lure him over?” I suggest. I’m so frustrated sitting here, knowing Odin’s so close to safety, yet being unable to bring him in.

  Fletch tosses chunks of tuna down the bluestone path and Odin inches closer and closer. “Those pieces are too big! He’s going to be stuffed before we get him over here,” I say.

  Then I get the genius idea to rub catnip all over myself and douse my hands with tuna juice so I’ll smell irresistible. And I am irresistible. To every biting bug in Lake County. I’m going to need my own flea collar after this.

  After woofing down big chunks of tuna, Odin seems satisfied and we can’t lure him any closer.

  “This isn’t working,” I cry.

  “This cat is coming in this damn house right damn now,” Fletch says. [I love when he goes all General Patton.] “We’ll funnel him into the hedges and I’m going to force him down by you. Grab him and throw him in the house. Let’s do this!”

  And then we do this.

  Unsuccessfully.

  Whole buncha times.

  We’re almost three hours into the hunt when Fletch gets an idea. “Odin keeps going to the window where he escaped. What if you went inside and popped the screen to see if he wants to come in that way?”

  “Couldn’t work less than what we’re currently doing,” I agree. I hurry to the bedroom and ease the window open. Gingerly I pop the screen, the whole time saying, “Odie, come! Come on, little guy, come see your mama.”

  And then that little son of a bitch walks right up to the window, arches his spine, and raises the back of his neck as though he wants me to pick him up.

  As though I hadn’t been trying to do exactly that for the past three hours.

  I’m able to grab him and whisk the window shut and the whole time, Odin’s purring contentedly in my arms, all, “You shoulda seen the scary monsters that was chasing me!”

  Two down, one to go.

  After we got Odin back and I washed all the fish juice off myself, Fletch insisted we call it a night. We left the screen off the window and lined the sill with tuna in the hopes that Gus would follow suit.

  In the morning, the meat’s gone but there’s no sign of Gus. I’m sure any number of animals could have eaten it, but I choose to believe it was Gus. Because he’s the most skittish of the group, we need to rethink our strategy. I feel he’s too nervous to come out on his own, so I send Fletch out to buy a cruelty free trap while I spend the day in the woods. I catch nothing, save for the possible exception of malaria.

  We set the Havahart trap and cover it with a towel and I dash out the door in the morning to find the tuna gone and nothing in the trap except an enormous toad and some mouse droppings.

  I really thought Gus would be back within twenty-four hours, but he’s not. What’s he doing out there? Is he hurt? Is he scared? What’s he eating, other than the possibility of windowsill tuna? It’s so hot—is he able to find a water source? Does he even want to come home?

  Maybe that’s it. Maybe I’ve spent so much time anthropomorphizing him that I just assumed he loved me back and wanted to live here. I mean, he’s not a person; he’s an animal. Maybe he got out in the wild and the feral part of his brain took over. Maybe he’s been miserable here and all he’s ever wanted to do was roam free. Maybe he’s still pissed off about the time I stuck him in a pumpkin costume and put his picture on the Internet.

  Yet I’m not about to give up on him. I’m scouring the Web for information when Fletch comes up behind me.

  “Any news on Gus?” he asks.

  “Um, so far he hasn’t checked in on Foursquare or updated his
Facebook status, so, no. No news,” I reply. (Except Stacey who sent me a note saying, “He’ll come slinking home smelling of clove cigarettes and wine coolers, having made out with someone inappropriate. Oh, wait, that was me in high school. But he’ll be back, don’t worry.”)

  “That’s not what I meant. Why don’t you ask your readers for help? They know everything,” he suggests.

  The thing is, he’s right. I swear I have the most plugged-in readers in the world and there’s pretty much nothing they can’t resolve. They figured out when my tree was infested with Emerald Ash Borers and informed me it was Tatiana Patitz in my favorite George Michael video, and not Elaine Irwin. [Freedom ’90.] When I was hit with my second instance of those bastard ear crystals, alert fans pointed me to the Epley Maneuver and in ten minutes, I was able to fix what my primary care physician couldn’t in three months. How did I not think to ask these guys two days ago?

  As soon as I post a status update, advice pours in. Those who don’t have a specific strategy offer support and I’m grateful for their kind thoughts. I’m overwhelmed with all the useful information, from setting the trap on the lightest possible setting to leaving the garage door cracked so Gus can come inside on his own. We also plan to set out baskets of dirty laundry and used cat litter, so Gus will be attracted to a familiar smell. [Fletch drew the line at the suggestion he pee in the bushes. But if the above doesn’t work, I’m not opposed to trying myself.]

  Putting the suggestions into action requires a trip to Target for sardines and a baby monitor. Now it’s no secret that I’m a Target aficionado. From Archer Farms and Merona and Mossimo to Up & Up, I have intimate knowledge of almost every product and aisle. I speak bull’s eye. I can even tell you which Target carries my favorite brand of milk [Grassland at the Target Highland Park.] and which stocks my favorite moisturizer [Johnson’s Deep Hydrating Lotion at the Target Vernon Hills.] and I plan my shopping trips accordingly. But until today I’ve not had much reason to set foot in the baby aisles.

  Let me just say this—I had no idea having a baby required so many accessories. From onesies to crib bumpers to lanolin-based n-i-p-p-l-e salve, how does anyone have a kid without going completely broke? Just getting a nursery ready for Day One of a baby’s life has to cost thousands of dollars and that’s way before they start crying for Air Jordans or flip phones or whatever it is the kids need these days to preserve their self-esteem. You have one kid and you’re never going to be able to afford that generator. And didn’t people used to have their babies sleep in drawers fifty years ago? Where did all these products come from?