I was not hallucinating

Imagine traveling across the country, taking the incredibly direct route of Baltimore, MD to Houston, TX, to Edmonton, AB with your wacky four-year-old sidekick, on a minimum of rest after a whirlwind visit to see friends and family and stuff yourself with seafood.  After getting a quick dinner, you return to your humble abode around 9:30 PM and bring in your luggage stuffed with about 45 pounds more cargo than you had when you left Canada.  Then, you look, bleary-eyed, around the room and notice that there is a crouching feline in your living room.  You haven't had a cat since 2001.  Christopher and Eliana are both allergic, and there is no telling how long this animal has been hanging out, dropping fur and other...substances.  Plus, our not-so-stable landlady would not take kindly to an unauthorized pet in the house.  And...scene:

Kelley:  Uh, Christopher, There is a CAT IN THE HOUSE!

Christopher:  What?

K:  A CAT.  A gray cat.  In the living room.

Here is where Christopher clearly thought I was hallucinating.  But, sure enough, there was a skinny gray cat (with white "polka dots," as Eliana likes to tell it.)

C: Why? Get it out. OPEN THE DOOR.

I start frantically trying to open the back door, hoping to convince the cat to go out with a "here, kitty, kitty."  I don't sound convincing because, in my delirium, I am kind of afraid it might be rabid, or some kind of arctic lynx instead of a stray house cat, and I think it can sense my fear.  It dives under the furniture.  Christopher starts to make a barricade out of furniture and luggage to force the cat out the back.  He turns the ottoman onto its side.  All of this just really traps me in the dining room.  Christopher starts yelling at me to be more helpful and to get down and grab the cat.  Like I would want to do that.  It is really a cougar from the Canadian Rockies that will eat me and my child.  The sleek, feral cat makes a leap like a circus animal over the ottoman and races around the main level of the house.  I start screaming, "Close the doors! Close the doors!" I do not want the cat down in the lower level of the house.  I yell up to Eliana, "Stay in your room!  Close your door!" 

We scramble to go close all of the upstairs doors, but it is too late.  The athletic mountain lion has sprinted up the stairs.  We fear that it has gone into the master bedroom.  I start asking if we should call in some experts.  We, I mean, Christopher, looks for it under the bed and in the bathroom.  Nothing.  Eliana has shut her door.  We knock and go in.  Christopher sees a pair of glowing eyes under her bed.  He grabs Eliana and shuts the door again.  He then tells me to make sure every door is open downstairs.  I walk through the barricades to check the perimeter, now fearful that a coyote will get in as I fling open the house.  (Hey, there have been some in the neighborhood.)  I come back up and he tells me to lie flat on the floor.  He says, "Do not let it past you.  If it gets into Eliana's playroom, we will never get it out."  This is true.  He then says, "I don't care if you have to bludgeon it to death; just don't let it come past you."  My nature being gentle and not nearly as barbaric as my husband's, I grab two pillows from the guest room and "arm" myself.  There you have it.  Don't mess with me.  I am packing goose down, y'all.

He opens Eliana's door and chases the cat out.  I am prone on the floor with my pillows, screaming, "AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" at the cat.  It looks at me as though I am deranged, which I am, and dashes down the stairs.  I then collect myself and follow it down to coax it out an exit.  I had remembered to leave little paths through the barricade for it, but I myself can't get through.  As I see it heading toward the garage, I yell, "No, no, the front door, the front door."  Apparently, I think that the cat knows our floor plan.  It does head the other way as I gesture wildly at it.  Christopher has now joined me downstairs and confirms that it has exited the home. We shut the door, and then I grow a conscience.  Will it be all right?  What if a coyote gets it?  I say a prayer for the cat. 

Luckily, I haven't found much evidence of the cat around the house.  I like to think it is happily back where it belongs.  We think that the workers who were installing trim in our five-month-overdue basement room let it in by mistake.  Be well, gray mountain lion.  Be safe.  Just don't be here.