MLAARE -Loose Cat

There was another first for me at work today;

We had a cat get loose in the store.
A customer's cat.
Not one that was waiting for adoption.
But a cat that actually belonged to someone.

O.o
I mean people bring in their cats all the time, but none of them have gotten 'loose'
Because most of the time they're contained in a carrier, on a leash, or held in arms because they're small.

And this cat had been contained, in a carrier.

But for some reason, while the owner was waiting to go into grooming -I think they'd shown up early and were just wandering the store.
The customer had opened the carrier....Not sure why. But opened it they had.
And the cat had slipped out.
Escaped.
Disappearing underneath our steel shelves holding a ton of Dog Beds.

:S
That's a problem.
One. Because if the cat chose to climb up out of reach....it would be super difficult to get her.
Two. We have steel racks all around the store. There were a gazillion places for her to hide!

Basically, it was a nightmare in the making.
How to find a cat.
That was Black mind you. (so she could blend into the shadows really well.)
That disappeared out of sight. Wasn't making a sound.
While there were dogs in the store (on leashes) roaming about with their owners?

Honestly, I thought we'd have to wait until the store closed hours later, and lure the kitty out when all fell silent with some food and somehow trap it while everyone was gone.

Thankfully, that didn't happen.
I don't know what the owner would have done if that had to be the case, or what we would have done if the owner had left and we'd found the cat.

Who knows.

Basically any coworker that was free to help in the store went looking for the kitty.
But they weren't doing more than glancing about. Looking under things. As the owner wandered around the area calling out her name, and searching herself.
After all.
She could be anywhere.

But I wondered...if she would have gone so far away from where she slipped under the dog beds.
There were beds that had fallen between the steel shelves and the wall.
Maybe she'd stayed there.

I had no idea how terrified this cat had been when she'd escaped.
Had she been panicked by a dog?
Had she just wanted out of the carrier?

No idea.

But. I glanced at the space between wall and shelves.
And I was thin enough to slip in the crack there.
To look behind the shelves.

I mean the cat wouldn't just be sitting pretty in front of everything.
She'd be behind something.

I moved towards the first dog bed.
Nothing.
Moved to the next, moving it aside so I could search further.
And there she was.
The little black kitty.
Having made a little nest for herself between that bed and the wall.

I gently picked her up.
And thankfully she was calm, she wasn't scared out of her mind.
So I was able to easily maneuver the two of us out from the shelves, clambering over the dog beds on the bottom shelf to do so.
And returned her to her owner.

Yay for happy endings!

-Sarnic Dirchi