One of my family’s long-running gags is about a cat. Here’s a version I found on the web:
A man left his cat with his brother while he went on vacation for a week. When he came back, he called his brother to see when he could pick the cat up. The brother hesitated, then said, “I’m so sorry, but while you were away, the cat died.”
The man was very upset and yelled, “You know, you could have broken the news to me better than that. When I called today, you could have said he was on the roof and wouldn’t come down. Then when I called the next day, you could have said that he had fallen off and the vet was working on patching him up. Then when I called the third day, you could have said he had passed away.”
The brother thought about it and apologized.
“So how’s Mom?” asked the man.
“She’s on the roof and won’t come down.”
Tonight my cat was on the roof. Literally, not figuratively.
The door between the living room and the bedroom is an accordion-style door – it folds rather than opens. And it’s somewhat broken, mostly because a certain kitty named Rocky felt that a closed door shouldn’t stop him from going into the bedroom. I put some stuff in front of the door to keep Rocky out, but obviously it wasn’t quite enough, and when he found his way through the accordion door, he also noticed that the bedroom wall was gone – the one that was on one side of the staircase to the second floor.
So, after hearing the pitter-patter of little feet on the wrong floor, we raced upstairs and performed a pretty elaborate rescue mission, eventually luring the kitty back in from the roof, which is still apparently accessible to a cat from the unfinished second floor. Upon returning to the livable part of the house, Rocky was convicted of felony mischief and put in jail until we could build a better barrier to the staircase.