A very strange experience befell me this afternoon. I was at Parkdale Mall, our local shopping emporium in Beaumont, Texas, for several hours this morning and afternoon. After finishing some business, I walked out in the heat to my truck to find a note, written on stationery which was likely used by a girl or woman and left under my windshield wiper. Said the note:
“There is a kitten in your engine. Please check under your hood before you start your car.”
My first reaction after saying: “Huh?” was that someone was playing a joke. I almost expected someone to tell me I was on Candid Camera. I then decided I would play along.
I unhooked the hood latch from inside my truck then opened up the engine compartment. As I raised the hood this greasy, yellow tabby jumped up from on top of my engine block and flew toward the ground, becoming invisible. From the time I opened up the hood until the kitty was long out of site probably lasted all of a second.
A real kitten under my hood was the last thing I would have expected. A bomb maybe, but not a kitten.
Obviously one might wonder how the cat got on top of my engine block. I am among those who wonder that very thing.
The cat didn’t look like any I had seen around where I live and I can’t imagine a cat riding around under the hood although stranger events have happened. Also, I don’t believe someone could open the hood and put the kitty there because my truck was locked and the hood opens from the inside.
My lone theory is that perhaps Grease Monkey the Cat was looking for shade in the middle of acres of pavement on a sunbaked Texas summer day. I guess the person who heard the cat really freaked out. I know I would have if I walked by a parked car and heard a “meow” coming from under the engine compartment. Major kudos to whomever heard it and left me the note. I don’t even like to contemplate the image had I started the vehicle with the kitten trying to escape.
If in fact my theory bears fruit, then I would be led to believe that kitty cat won’t try that trick again.