The night when the walls between the worlds grow thin is a time for stories. Especially true stories. Follow below, if you wish, for one with a bit of humor and just a hint of a chill...
My first cat, Jasmine, was terrified of riding in vehicles. Hated it. Those were the times that her Siamese heritage was most evident. Enormous, hot gold eyes and piercing complaints that only subsided after several hours on the road.
She had to be the very last thing that went into the truck whenever we moved. The drill was to load the truck, put the cat box on the passenger side floor, go back for her, lock the door and get into the vehicle. Place unhappy cat in the box, key the ignition and turn on the fan to dissipate the resulting miasma. It scared her that badly. Every time.
We were together 17 years and lived all over the country. We moved almost more times than I can count. I always felt terrible having to move her again. She eventually got quieter, the complaints diminishing to the initial ten minutes or so, but she never got used to it.
I was still traveling for work when I got the three new cats several months after Jasmine had died. I'd intended to get two to keep each other company while I was at work, but a half grown kitten managed to reach out & snag the elbow of my sweater with a single claw as I walked past with the two adults. A tiny dark tortie, with hot gold eyes, and she squeaked, 'Pleeeeze, take me with you. I'll be good, I promise.'. Yeah, I'm a total sucker. And she was lying through her sharp little teeth. But it was the same shelter I'd gotten Jasmine from almost twenty years earlier and one of the officers actually remembered us both, so they cut me a break on adopting all three.
I was determined to get them used to the road so they wouldn't be as miserable as Jasmine had always been. I was doing contract work at a hospital about an hour & a half from home, three shifts a week, and the company covered a motel. So I started sneaking the girls along. All in their carriers to start; then once we were on the freeway headed east, I'd let them out, one at a time, to explore and learn the rules. Anyplace under the steering wheel was verboten. No lap. Definitely no driver's side floor, (from any approach angle).
It took them a couple of weeks to get the idea, (I was still having to occasionally fish one out from under the seat), and they were never crazy about starting out in the carriers, but they developed their seating preferences & we got it down. They'd lounge and prowl the room at night, (I always worked 7P-7A), and I had the ‘Do not disturb’ sign out so we could sleep during the day, (and so housekeeping wouldn't bust us, 'cause I'm pretty sure the company would have objected to the deposit).
We did that for more than half a year, then work dried up and I defaulted to a staff position at that same hospital. We moved the whole kit 'n kaboodle, cats & horses, out to Blythe, Ca.
Truly horrible place in so many ways. To be forever avoided if humanly possible. There's a Flying J truck stop just across the state line/Colorado River, in Ehrenberg, Az. Stop there. Much better gas prices, food & service.
Three years on, I escaped from Ehrenberg to the Bay Area, (to help my father's widow & go back and finish a Bachelors). Last trip had the cats. The car was from Arizona & had tinted windows, (a no-no in CA), and ~0230 on an unlighted stretch of I-5 a CHP pulled me over for the tinting.
The tortie, Mischief, (long story, well earned), loved riding with her butt on the seat back & her front paws on my shoulder, so she had the same view I did. I pulled over, reached down & cracked the window to speak to the ChiP so the cats couldn't escape.
As he came up next to us, I heard him catch his breath and freeze. After a couple of beats, when he still hadn't said anything, I leaned forward to look around Mischief and ask him why he'd pulled me over. He started breathing again. To his credit, his voice was casual and almost steady when he asked me if I was aware of the laws about window tint.
I explained I was moving & promised I'd get it handled in the morning. He let it go at a warning and we parted company; our headlights the only things denting the well of blackness filling that stretch of the Valley.
It was late and I was tired, so it took me a minute after he'd left to put things together and realize that he'd come up and seen, through the narrowly opened window, a black cat's head silhouetted against the dash with human hands on the wheel. And only then my face and voice from behind her. Have to admit I did laugh, poor guy.
I've often wondered if he ever told anyone about the time he thought he'd pulled over Bastet driving an illegally tinted Izuzu Impulse down a lonely stretch of the central valley on a very dark night. ;-)
Happy Halloween