This still seems like a really bad dream, but Mike assures me that it really happened and I guess I’ll take his word for it. Last night, about 2 am, Sterling started making that horrible cat fight sound. You know, that horrible cross between a growl and a scream? And the weird part was that he was in the house.

Mike: What’s Sterling so upset about?

Me: I don’t know, Jake’s probably got him cornered

Sterling: Louder and more urgent screaming.

Mike (who’s now gotten out of bed and gone into our home office): Oh my god, there’s a strange cat in our house!!!

Me (still in bed hoping this is all a nightmare): What? Are you sure?

Mike: Yeah, he’s got it cornered under your desk!

Me (now hurrying into the other room): Oh my god, you’re right!

Scene: The two of us, half awake, surveying my cat growling and another cat, also growling, facing off in our office.

Mike: How’d he get in? Is the door open?

Me: I don’t know I’ll go check.

Mike: I’m going to grab him and throw him outside.

Scene: Mike actually meant Sterling, not the strange cat like I thought, which was a really bad idea since Sterling is really vicious when he’s all riled up. I go to check the backdoors to find them closed.

Mike: Ahhh, he tried to bite me!

Me (coming back into the office): Go get a salmon net, I’ll chase Sterling out and corner this one.

Mike: okay.

Scene: I chase Sterling out of the room and go to check on Mike. I turn back around just in time to see the strange cat follow Sterling into our bedroom and under the bed. Dammit - now we have a cat fight under our bed.

Mike: I got a broom, where’s the cat?

Me: Under the bed with Sterling.

Scene: Mike chases it out from under the bed with the broom. It runs into kitchen and ends up in the sink. I open the back door and Mike uses the broom to turn the water on on the cat. It jumps out of the sink, runs toward Mike who swats at it with the broom. It turns and runs out the door into the night.

Turns out that Mike forgot to close the garage door. Because our house has it’s share of 1950’s quirks, the strange cat was able to get from the garage into the house, up the stairs, and into the office. Bummer

It took me a good 45 minutes to calm back down and fall asleep again. This morning the whole this seemed even more surreal than it did last night. From now on we’ll be sure to check the garage door every night before we got to bed.