This is a guest post by Peyton Farquhar

Several years ago, I had a roommate who moved back to her home on the west coast.  At the time, I was residing in the Mid-Atlantic.  We had packed up her belongings in the weeks leading up to moving day, and, on the morning of the truck’s arrival, used a dolly and man-power to remove it all.  A few hours later, when the truck was packed up, we promised to keep in touch, said our goodbyes, and that was that.  I then went about tidying up the place to fill in the spaces where furniture had previously been.

Around four o’clock that afternoon, I noticed my cat hadn’t been about the house in quite some time.  This was not all that unusual since there had been a considerable amount of noise and strangers moving boxes and furniture.  I figured that she was simply sleeping in a closet avoiding the bedlam.  But dinner time rolled around and still no sign of Jasper.

At this point, I was becoming concerned because it wasn’t like her to not remind me to feed her dinner by five or six at the latest.  Nonplussed, I then began looking around the house calling her name.  My voice echoed hollowly in the now sparsely furnished rooms as I opened closet doors and peered under bureaus.  Wherever Jasper was hiding, she certainly did an outstanding job of choosing it.

Although it did not seem likely, my immediate thought was that she had run out the front door during the commotion.  I lived in the countryside and was surrounded by farmland so there was a lot of places she could have theoretically run off to hide in, assuming that she had run outside, that is.  I wasn’t convinced that is what happened, however, because Jasper has always been a very timid cat.  The few times her curiosity has gotten the best of her sufficient to investigate outside, she quickly reconsidered before I had even become aware that she had slipped outdoors.  My biggest fear now was that she would get hit by traffic on the two-lane highway, and, so my searching endeavor began rather frenetically.

Dusk had fallen and I had been walking around in the crisp September air searching the property looking under cars and in enclosed spaces with a flashlight, as well as knocking on doors to no avail.  The daylight was fading fast and so I reluctantly resolved that I’d continue investigating the next morning.  I was loathe to leave Jasper outside to fend for herself, but it was unlikely that I would find her in the dark.  Besides, she had probably been frightened and had found shelter somewhere from the cold of night.  At least that is what I liked to think had happened.

That evening, I called my roommate on the road and told her Jasper was missing.  Thinking perhaps the cat had somehow wandered into the truck, I asked her to check around to see if she had stowed away.  However, my roommate and her male companion brushed aside the idea; They were both adamant that if the cat had managed to sneak inside, they would have seen her.  I wasn’t convinced and left a standing request with them to keep checking during rest stops nonetheless.

A few days had passed and still there was no sign of the cat.  Each day after work, I put up dozens of missing cat posters on every telephone pole within a twenty mile square radius of the house.  Then I went walking around the countryside armed with a Polaroid of Jasper knocking on doors attached to seedy looking dwellings that I would not normally stop at.  But no one had seen Jasper.

That same night, I was just about ready to head for home when I came upon the last farm on my list.  I knocked on the door and the woman who answered was dressed in traditional Mennonite fashion.  I showed her my photo of Jasper and she said that she thought she may have seen the cat amongst her own collection.  She said Jasper stood out from the others because hers were short haired and either black or orange, and Jasper is long haired with a grey coat.

She led me across her property and over to the barn.  When she opened the door, there was a small population of approximately twenty farm cats hanging out with the cows and horses and lounging in the hay.  It was a cute scene, and, I scanned the group, but didn’t see Jasper.  The woman then remembered another location on her property where a few stray cats who visited her farm gathered to be fed with the others.  She opened the barn door and there was a long haired, grey cat sitting amongst a group of three other felines.  The cat was identical to my cat in every way, but when she looked up at me, I knew this cat was not Jasper.  Seeing my despondency, the Mennonite woman told me that I was welcome to take home as many of her own cats as I liked.  She said they were very good at catching mice and other vermin and that is why she always fed the strays.  I told her that if I ever bought a farm, then I’d keep her offer in mind.

That night I had gone online and emailed a letter to the editor of the local newspaper asking that the neighbors within my immediate vicinity contact me if they had seen a cat matching Jasper’s description.  I knew it was a long shot, but the longer she went missing, the less likely she would ever be found.

A few more days had passed and it was now day four after the cat’s disappearance.  I was beginning to lose hope, but continued walking the neighborhood, knocking on doors and putting up more posters after work.  This had become my daily routine.

I went to work the next morning and put in the usual shift when my phone rang a few hours before quitting time.  It was my roommate calling to tell me that they had found Jasper.  She said that when  the sofa was being moved out of the truck, they heard a meow coming from inside the couch.  The sofa was then turned over, and when the underside lining was cut away, there was the missing cat, enfolded in the stuffing.  Evidently, Jasper had indeed found her perfect hiding place to bypass the turmoil, she was just unaware that it was going to be relocated into the back of a truck bound for the west coast.

Jasper was then immediately rushed to the local vet where she had to spend a few days due to dehydration and malnutrition, but it was nothing the vet said that she would not recover from.  Upon hearing the news, relief had flooded over me.  I shared the bulletin with my department, and, they were stupefied to hear that my cat had survived a four day, three-thousand mile, cross-country odyssey to San Diego, California from inside of a sofa.

I went home that night assuaged to know that Jasper had been found, and, emailed another letter to the newspaper asking that it be posted in the next edition so that anyone who had bothered to look for my cat would stop.  I didn’t know how many people had actually read the first letter, but had received a few calls asking about my cat in the meantime.

The next morning I had returned to work and took another phone call shortly after lunch.  This one was from a reporter from the same newspaper I had written the missing cat letters to.  She said that she wanted to write a story about Jasper’s journey because she thought people might like to read about the happy ending.  I was astounded that anyone had even bothered to notice in the first place, never mind want to write a story about it and feature it on the front page in the Sunday edition of the Lifestyle section.

The reporter asked for photos of me and the cat to feature in the story, but I declined publication of any images of my own face since I enjoy my privacy.  I provided a few images of Jasper, and true to her word, the reporter did write the story, and, it did in fact, appear on the front page of the following Sunday edition.  Jasper’s fifteen minutes of feline fame happened on the east coast while she was enjoying her recuperation in sunny Southern California.

A few months later, when she was well enough to travel, my roommate purchased a one-way flight ticket, and, in mid-December, returned Jasper home.  I was the only person at the airport that snowy evening retrieving a live animal from the cargo bay.  A full year later, we both moved to the City of San Diego and have been together ever since.

©2010 Peyton Farquhar^TM and Prattle On, Boyo^TM.  Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.  Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Peyton Farquhar^TM and Prattle On, Boyo^TM with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Peyton Farquhar is originally from the mid-atlantic region of the United States, and, has had careers in retail sales management, I.T. hardware and software support, and commercial real estate. In his spare time he enjoys surfing, biking, sketching, photography, music, movies, writing, and, spending time with his cat, Jasper.  He currently earns a living as a Paralegal in Southern California.

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