It was time for another oil change, rotation of tires, change of filters, etc. and I arrived at my appointment late by 2 hours.
Started the day with the oil change in mind, but after a few hard-working hours at the computer, my mind, as usual, flicked off any other items I needed to care for.
Since I was already late by two hours, I thought I could traipse over to the mechanic and offer my apologies, while he pushed everything aside to care for my car. Otherwise, I will have to make another appointment to bring the car in later.
He was able to care for my car after lunch and drove it into to bay. After a few minutes, he came over to the waiting area and made a hand motion for me to follow him into the bay. My mind, of course, was racing because I thought the car was done with and I had to think of a way to dispose of it. After all, it has served me long enough to make a change. The speedometer runs over 187,000 miles, although it runs great on the straightway and has not given me any problems thus far.
As I approached the car with the hood up in the air, all I could think of was the mud-daubers which I could see plain as anything at the locking mechanism of the hood. I can’t stand the wasps making a home wherever they want and leaving the cleaning up to me. But there they were, right up front of the lock.
However, the mechanic kept looking at me with his arms crossed against his chest and a beautiful smile on his face. It took me a little while to discover the reason for his grin.
There, inside a recess of the engine, stood my newly acquired cat! It’s no bigger than my hand, skinny as a rail, but hanging on for dear life as we both stared at it not knowing what to make of it.
Finally, I pried it away from the engine compartment and hugged him close to my body, while it tried to escape, and I have the scars he created with his nails to prove it. He squirmed, and squirmed some more, until I could not hold it any longer, so I opened the car door and threw it inside to wait for me.
Grumpy had brought it home for me to feed and keep in the barn, as it was an outside cat. I made him a combination of bread and milk for the first time, and it seemed to like it. Next time we were out, Grumpy bought a large bag of cat food and that became the regular meal in the garage, as it did not want to stay in the barn but rather liked the garage better.
To this date, we don’t know whether we have a girl-cat or a boy-cat. No matter, it stays in the garage, eating the food, drinking water from the tap and enjoying its new home.
As the mechanic said before I left with the oiled car and the cat: “You normally don’t see cats in the engine compartment looking as well as this one.”
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