Reason #27 why I am not a cat person

I wouldn't exactly describe myself as a cat person. I'm not anti-cat, but let's just say that I didn't spend my last year in Venezuela daydreaming about coming home and getting my own cat.

It just so happens that my mom got a new barn cat while the rest of us were out of town a couple weeks ago. I will concede that she is pretty cute...despite being a real yowler. And so far she's been feisty enough to evade Hannah's attempts to turn her into the newest squeaky toy, so I've got to give the little girl credit. Her name is Clementine. I've since taken liberties with her name and started calling her Myddie since my first significant interaction with her was helping take care of her eye that was infected with chlamydia. (Apparently that's normal, but I can't get past how gross it sounds). Myddie works just fine for me.

Last night we had a whopper of a rain storm. Unfortunately we are discovering that the roof of our new barn leaks like crazy, so li'l Myddie ran outside seeking shelter under our friend Holly's truck and thus begins the saga....

Holly needed to cut her visit short and as she was getting ready to leave we realized that Myddie was no longer just under the truck but had climbed up into the undercarriage to avoid the standing water accumulating in the driveway.

Plan A was to startle her and hope she'd take off running from the truck. But after several minutes of banging on the sides of the truck and setting off the panic alarm, still no Myddie.

That's when we moved to Plan B: Emily crawling under the truck (note previous comment about standing water) for operation Kitty Extraction. I have no idea where she was hiding but she was doing it well. We could hear her cry every once in a while, but couldn't see her. And you better believe I crawled all around under the truck on my back looking.

Holly helped out by hitting the panic button a few times while I was under the truck. It was nowhere near as loud as I expected it would be. That's a plus, I guess.

I crawled from the exhaust system to the engine and back again before I finally found Myddie on top of Holly's spare tire. And even though she was yowling like mad, there was now way that she was going to come down. I was just trying to help and all she would do was hiss at me. Yeah, like I'm excited to be under the truck in a puddle, Myddie. Just give me a break already and come out, would ya?

After a couple rounds of her "kitty doesn't want to take a bath" routine of bracing her legs against any available surface I managed to pry her loose and hand her to my mom. At which point Myddie stopped hissing and started purring like a boat motor. Figures.

I was soaked from head to toe but by that point had stopped caring so I took a moment to admire a bright double rainbow with Holly. While pondering the significance of the rainbow I quipped, "Isn't that God's sign to say 'I promise I'll never do that to you again'?"
I sure hope so. **Please note that the stinkin' cat is bone dry in both photos. I'm wet, the cat's snuggled into a raincoat. Myddie's only a few months old and she's already figured out how to work the system.