How A Disobedient Cat Can Save You A Useless Hour of Driving

This comes under the category of "worth blogging about?"

I usually teach at the academy all afternoon, from about 2:30 to 6:30 on Wednesdays. Tonight I had a rehearsal scheduled at 7:30 in Ontario, about 30 minutes away. With traffic, grabbing something from Del Taco, and wanting to arrive early, I wouldn't normally go home before heading off on the I-10 freeway. But today, a very unusual thing happened--Just before I was heading off to teach, I remembered that my cat may still have been outside, and I always want him inside after dark, for fear of coyotes. I called and called and got out his favorite treat, veal baby food, to bribe him in, but he never showed up. Finally it was literally 2 minutes before my first lesson was to start (good thing the school is 2 minutes away), and I really had to leave, so I left him. I was worried about the poor guy all afternoon, so before I left for rehearsal I squeezed in a trip home, just for a second, to check on him. There he was, safe and sound, on my bed; he had been inside the whole time. Since I was there anyway, I happened to check my new messages on my machine, and of all things--the orchestra manager had called at about 4:30 that afternoon and left a message that the rehearsal was cancelled! I would never have checked my messages if it weren't for my cat, and I would have been on my way to Ontario, an hour out of my way, only to find an empty rehearsal room.