Oh kitty...

You know, if I had to come up with a strange way to spend my Friday night, I don't think I would have come up with the story I'm about to share with you.

It all started around 11, as I was getting ready for bed. My evening was fairly low-key, I watched a few episodes of Angel after making myself a yummy dinner. As soon as I turned the TV off, I could hear a cat meowing outside. It sounded pretty unhappy (think stray cats when they are about to fight each other). I was brushing my teeth, washing my face, wondering why the cat didn't sound like it was moving around. I could hear it as if it was right at my front door. So I decided to go check it out, especially now that I could hear a few people outside calling "kitty, kitty, where are you?"

I wasn't prepared for what came next. My next door neighbor and his girlfriend were standing by the front stairs, peering into the tight crawl space that separates our walkway from the building next door. I went to get a flashlight, pointed it the best I could to see where the meowing was coming from and there it was... Wedged in between the two concrete walls was an adult cat. My neighbor was lying in the neighbor's garden on his belly, trying to extend an arm to grab the cat, but no luck. The kitty went into the crawl space head first, its back legs were probably three feet below ground level and his head, about four feet. He was hanging in the air, stuck.

After realizing the absurdity of the situation, we called 911 and they contacted the SPCA's emergency response unit. A very nice lady pulled up in a truck about five minutes later, armed with a flashlight, two cat-poles (long pole with a loop that can be tighten at a distance). I'm sure she had seen all kinds of bizarre situations, but even she was surprised by this one. She tried placing the loop of the cat-pole around its head, but it was so tightly stuck that there wasn't enough space to get a hold of the animal.

Next step? She called the fire department. Yes, fire fighters are indeed called in to rescue cats and not only from trees. Four fire fighters came by a few minutes later with some heavy-duty equipment. They couldn't believe how the cat got himself in such trouble!! The only way they could think of getting the cat out of there was to dig out the neighbor's garden to allow someone to lower themselves enough to get a hold of the cat and pull him out.

It took 45 minutes, several shovels, five flashlights, two cat-poles, a few tools (to take out the railing for the stairs), a hockey stick, and a bottle of Dawn dishwashing liquid to finally yank the cat out of its spot. Yeah, dishwashing liquid, even when we were finally able to reach the cat, he was so jammed in we had to use the soap as kitty-lube. You can just imagine what this animal looked like when he was finally rescued and placed into a cage with a soft blanket. He didn't try escaping, I think he was so tired and scared that he let himself be carried away without much fuss. The SPCA lady then took him to a 24-hour emergency veterinarian. It was 1:30 a.m. by the time everything was over.

We still don't know who the cat belongs to, not anyone in the building as far as I know. He didn't have a collar (which would have helped us a lot).

Like I said, interesting way to spend a Friday night. At least, I got to know a few of my new neighbors...