Keeping Bob

So here's a story that's been doing the rounds since we moved into our little house in Brighton. We were told over and over that we should keep Bob (our cat) from escaping for a whole month. This was a piece of advice attached to 'butter his feet' which although had implications of hilarious greasy good times, realistically Bob just padded around, confused ,on slimey paws until discovering he could just eat the butter.

Anyway, a week after we moved in, having unstuck the windows that some bright spark had painted shut, M realised he had left the spare room window open and Bob had disappeared.

For weeks we had seen posted stuck evenly around our neighbourhood claiming "Lost Kitten! Moved here a few weeks ago, comes to the name Miss Mieow" etc. etc. So here we were - lost cat. Except it was around midnight and Bob the Cat had no doubt jumped out and over the roofs of Brighton.

"Mike, we've lost him!" I wailed.

"It's ok babe, I'll find him. Don't worry, I'll find him." Mike looked into my tearful eyes before... scrambling through said open window and out onto the roof as well. Brilliant plan.

"I can't see properly, do we have a torch?" His voice floated out over the roof, having teetered unconvincingly to the middle section where he now straddled safely.

"There's one of my phone," I offered reluctantly. This was my new iPhone 4 we're talking about.

"Yeah, great, pass it over."

So there they were. My fiance, my iphone and my cat all out on top of my new house. All my loves.

Suddenly a man called out, and M responded with,

"Hello! I'm looking for my cat, have you seen him?"

"Your CAT??" the incredulous voice replied. Clearly he would have accepted, 'I'm drunk' as a better explanation.

Suddenly spotting him, M called out to Bob and e-v-e-n-t-u-a-l-l-y coaxed him back through the window.

I went back to bed.