He's Home!!!

Yesterday was one of the worst days I have ever had.  I took Lester Buster's "recent pic" and made copies and took it to the vet's office, the Humane Society and wandered the streets.  I posted to our HOA website and fielded phone calls from old ladies who swore they have had him in their backyard since before he went missing.

My son and his girlfriend got home in the afternoon and first thing wanted to know if little Lester Buster had come.  She took off roaming the streets and calling for him after I told them no, sadly my little boy had not yet turned up.

I started freaking out a little bit and doing the whole "make a deal with God" thing.  If only Lester could be okay and come home, I will do x, y and z.  And then my over-active imagination kicked in and I started thinking about how this exact situation must have been the catalyst for Stephen King to write Pet Sematary. And how I would be one of those over-wrought idiots who would take a Zombie-Lester over no Lester. And how it wouldn't be that bad, having a Zombie-Lester.

I had to go to my fortnightly Mah Jongg game and on my way home, I started praying that if it was God's will that Lester Buster NOT come home, that I hoped he would be safe and healthy wherever he was.  Because truly that is what I want.  More than I want him for my own happiness, I want his health and comfort.  But as I drove up my street I looked expectantly at the front of my house to see if he might be up there at the front steps.  Nope, no Lester.

About every 20 minutes I would get up from whatever I was doing and go check the front to see if he had wandered up.  Nope, no Lester.  And I would sit back down and just cry.  I cried so much yesterday.  And I am crying right now while typing this, too.  I guess it is just over-flow.

Anyhoo, the girlfriend-almost-daughter-in-law kept checking and calling for him as well, and about midnight she went out and hollered "Lester!!!" and then it was "Lester! He's here!!"  We all jumped up and went running to the door and here trots Lester.  Going right past us and heading for the food and water bowls.  Like he didn't even give a shit about us.

And I wish so bad that I had had my camera out to show you some pictures of that boy.  But I was in such a state yesterday there was no way I could believe that I would ever get another picture of him, so that didn't happen.  But try to picture this:  all of Lester's white parts looked like his black parts.  He looked like a coal miner!  We kept patting him with warm damp towels to clean him up and we opened up cans of wet food (only for very special occasions) and shooed the other cats away from his canned food and kept asking him "Where were you, Lester?"  "What on earth were you doing, Lester, to get so effing filthy?"  And he just looked at us with his beady red-rimmed eyes from behind all the dust and dirt and said . . . nothing.

Nothing.  Well, in his defense he is a cat and he doesn't speak a whole lot anyway.  But seriously, nothing. No whining or mowing to give us his side of things.  Not a damn word.

So while we are semi-cleaning him and loving him and showering him with affection, I was also secretly looking at his eyes to see if this was a filthy regular Lester or if this was a Pet Sematary Zombie-Lester who just got up from his dirt nap.

The mind is a powerful thing, isn't it?  My plan for the day is to stay at home with Lester Buster.  I had plans but they were cancelled on me, so I am going to stay home with my prodigal cat and pat him and hold him and keep checking his eyes for any signs of Zombie-ism.  : )

Many thanks and lots of love right back at all of you for caring whether he made it home or not.

Oh, and you will hopefully want to stay tuned here because next week is the first of the month and time for another Tea Giveaway!!

p.s. You will be relieved to know that since Lester Buster is back in the fold safe and sound, Mr. Big Ed has been given a reprieve.