The downstairs part of our house started to stink suddenly, and we couldn’t figure out why. We knew where the smell was coming from — our laundry room/food storage room — but we checked every single shelf, the fridge, and the freezer multiple times and found nothing. My brother had a friend over who mentioned that it smelled like cat pee, but that made even less sense. Our dog hated cats and my dad was allergic, so how could there be cat pee?
One night, around midnight, I was just finishing up on the computer and getting ready to turn in for the night. All of a sudden, my brother ran past me and headed upstairs, screaming that he saw the air exchanger tube moving. Sure enough, there was something inside it. My dad had to disconnect the whole thing, climbing over the shelves like a monkey to reach it. My brother and I watched, but my mom refused to come down because she was terrified that it was a skunk.
It took an hour, but my dad finally got the tube loose. He carefully carried it outside with us following like ducklings, turned it out, and scooped up the contents in his thick gloves. Out popped a little orange cat, who’d apparently been living in there for the past week. The cat bit my dad through the gloves, causing him to drop him, and guess what the little idiot did? He ran right back to the vent he’d used to get in the house in the first place and tried to jump back in — only the tube wasn’t there to catch him this time.
My dad caught him by the back legs just in time and slowly pulled him out as I watched. My mom, who grew up playing with barn cats and absolutely loved them, was cracking up. My brother went back inside and reported that he could see the cat halfway into the room, looking all indignant.
We got him out safely and kept him in the shed for a few days while we tried to locate his owner. When we couldn’t, Mom took the cat (who she affectionately named Marmalade) to a shelter. It was the craziest night of my life.
