Those of you who have fur babies whom you adore will understand our panic when our long-haired fifteen-pound cat didn’t show up one morning. He liked to stay out all night and would appear at the front door bright and early, to be fed breakfast and get brushed and combed before his morning nap on the couch. But this day he didn’t show. In fact, he was nowhere to be found. We knew that because we walked and then drove the entire neighborhood. Twice. But no Baby. That’s his name. Baby. Long story. Don’t ask.

Finally, as I was wringing my hands while my imagination ran wild, my husband said, “I think I should go look again.” He walked to the corner, calling Baby’s name, and when he heard him meowing he followed the sound to about 18 to 20 feet up in some sort of redwood tree in the neighbor’s front yard. There he was, terrified and afraid to come down because the branches were fairly small in diameter, and Baby’s diameter is pretty big.

The rest of the story is a bit embarrassing and I haven’t quite forgiven Baby to this day. We did something that had always made us chuckle when someone else did it. Yes, my husband called the fire department. They couldn’t have been nicer even though they did say Baby would eventually find a way down because they had never found a cat skeleton in a tree. But they weren’t busy, so they agreed to help.

Here they came, in a BIG firetruck and a pickup besides. I guess they had to bring the big truck because they needed a long ladder. Then here came the neighbors, too. It was a fire truck, after all, and we do tend to be curious about such things.

Out came the ladder, up went a fireman into the treetop, and down came Baby, safe and sound in the fireman’s arms, God bless him.

We love those guys. In fact, we took them some bakery goodies the next day and we will always be grateful. Embarrassed, but grateful.

A postscript. Baby’s been grounded. He can no longer stay out all night and that’s that. He doesn’t even argue anymore. Well, he still argues occasionally, but it does him no good.