I should have known something was up Part 2

A couple of days after I got the ceiling tile replaced I came home from work and immediately noticed that the new tile was on the floor and Ashleigh was no where to be seen. I thought that she had someone how managed to find her way outside through the gap between the ceiling and the exterior roof. I went outside and called her name and she came running. We played "Chase the monkey" (she sits still until I get with in inches of her and then she bounces off, kicking her hind feet and flicking her tail at me...) for a while. I finally caught her and got in back inside the house much to her hissing chagrin.

I sat down on the couch and I heard something land on the roof of my storage unit. I thought for sure that it was Willow finally coming home so I jumped up and ran across the room and opened the curtain and there I was...face to face with....

Lorenzo.

"Lorenzo? What are you doing outside?", I asked. I ran outside and put a ladder up so I could reach the top of the storage unit and I picked him up and brought him inside. It really scares me when he gets out because of him being deaf. He can't hear dogs or cars and I just know he's going to get injured. As I sat on the couch trying to clean the 2 inches of mud off of his pristine pink toes I heard a scratching at the screen behind my head. I turned around and I was ...face to face with...

Ashleigh.

WTF! "ASHLEIGH! I JUST BROUGHT YOU INSIDE. HOW DID YOU GET OUT ALREADY??"

I went outside and got her off of the 2 inch deep window sill. I told her that if she went outside that I was going to give her a spanking. (HA! I NEVER spank or hit my kitties in any way. The worst that I've ever done is flicked their nose to make them release me when they are biting me.) My threat didn't seem to worry her at all.

I put Ashleigh down, she wasn't muddy, and went back to trying to clean Lorenzo. I heard another thud on the storage shed. At this point I was pretty sure that I was going to become face to face with Ashton Kutcher because it was obvious that I was being Punk'd. However when I got to the window I was ... face to face...with...

Elijah.

Mind you...Elijah and Lorenzo were in the house when I came home initially. As I wondered where the hidden revolving door was located I went outside and collected Elijah off of the roof of the shed and as I approached the front door...there sat Ashleigh on the first step. I swear I could hear her laughing at me as I tried to bend over to pick her up without dropping Elijah. Ashleigh darted away and Elijah hung on for dear life. He dug in with all 20 claws and I don't think a nuclear explosion would have separated the two of us.

As I stood there bleeding I decided that Ashleigh could just stay outside because I was finished chasing her. I went in the house and caught Lorenzo right in the act of getting outside again.

When I brought Ashleigh in the house the first time I scanned the bottom of all of my screens for escape routes. Ashleigh's usual M.O. was to sit quietly and nimbly rip a tiny hole in the bottom of the screen and then with little or no effort just slide her head right through it. There were no holes in the bottom of the screens but there was a hole in the top of the screen that lead directly to the roof of the shed. I pulled Lorenzo out of the hole in the screen and I slammed the window shut. I went outside and I caught Ashleigh and I tossed her in side the house. As Ashleigh, Lorenzo and Elijah sat there looking and acting completely unaffected I made a big noisy point to shake my finger in their faces and slamming all of the windows shut. So what if it was 95 degrees in my house. I was going to teach them a lesson.

It didn't take them 5 minutes to find cool places for them to hide. Elijah splayed out on the kitchen floor. Lorenzo went under the bed and Ashleigh went under the couch. I, however, sat on the couch, in the blazing heat and tried to convince myself that I was vindicated. As I write this little excerpt of life....I'm beginning to think...not so much with the vindication.