Cat. Again.

I sent Bella the cat off to the vet last Monday to have her tubes tied, or whatever the hell it is they do to cats to ensure they cannot reproduce.  My main reason for doing this?  So she can get out of my f*cking house!!!  I've tried.  Believe You Me - I've tried!  But she is literally doing my head in.  First of all, there's all the furniture she is slowly but surely annihilating.  Secondly, the solitary indoor plant we own is apparently her favourite "toy".  If said plant did not have a great deal of meaning to me (I gave it to Andrew's Nanna a few months before she passed away) I quite possibly would not give a rat's and it would have landed in the rubbish - but it does have meaning, and every time that little s*it goes near it - I yell!  And thirdly - well, the same reason our older cat became an outdoor cat many many years ago - the litter tray.  That dirty, stinkin, blue box of crap.  I. Cannot. Stand. It.

Anyway - back to the operation.  I popped Bella in the cardboard travel box we owned, and then popped it on the front seat.  The vet is only a ten minute drive away, and in those fleeting minutes, Bella managed to claw and bite her way out of the box.  So I spent half the trip worried she would land under the accelerator pedal.  Got there, got her admitted, and skipped to the car.  Andrew picked her up that evening, and my expectation of a drowsy, quiet cat was dashed immediately.  No, no, not our Bella.  She jumped straight out of that (new) box and was flying around the house like nobody's business.  You would never know she had had major surgery.......

Crappy photo - but it is incredibly difficult to take a decent one of a pitch black cat!

Last night, on the eve of her having her stitches removed, and the excitement of being able to let her roam free, Bella mysteriously disappeared.  No bell to be heard.  No meow to be meowed.  I ended up going to bed thinking she had whipped out the back door when nobody was looking.  Upon waking this morning, I broke the news to the kids, and Cadyn took it upon himself to search the house.  The same house I searched high and low 12 hours beforehand.  He heard a meow.  We followed it.  And found her.  

Here.

She had spent the whole night in a storage cupboard.  And took her cardboard fetish to a new level.  Thankfully, she quick-footed it straight to that stinkin litter box and did her business.....

Cat anyone??