The craziest story you've ever heard

Guess this will teach me not to go hunting for books in the garage after 9.

Got home from school board last night, fixed dinner and settled in for a night of TV watching in the recliner. Somehow while doing so, I've forgotten exactly how, I came across a reference to a novel I'd read years ago by Richard Matheson called "Bid Time Return." It was later made into a movie with Jane Seymour and Christopher Reeve called "Somewhere in Time."

Anyway, the darn thing wouldn't leave the recesses of my mind, so I got up out of my comfy recliner, opened the garage door, pulled the car into the driveway and began hunting through my boxes of books. (Yep, I still haven't unpacked them all.) I was almost certain I still had a copy.

Well, about 10 minutes into my search, a cat strolled into my garage and began picking at my garbage can. Thinking it was a neighbor's pet, I shooed it away and kept on hunting for my book.

But the darn cat wouldn't leave.

Try as I might, I couldn't make it go. Repeated instructions to "Go on home" yielded nothing. Finally, I took the cat outside, told it again to go on home and shut my door.

Then my conscious got the better of me and I looked out. It was still sitting on my welcome mat.

Sigh.

Well, I couldn't let it stay out there all night if it didn't have a place to go. So I walked back into the garage to keep looking for this book I now am cursing. I open the garage door again -- no cat.

"Good," I said to myself, relieved. "It's gone on home."

Five minutes later, guess who strolls back into the garage?

I finally found the damn book. Then I opened the door just to see what would happen. Sure enough, the cat runs in, too.

I didn't have the heart to put it back outside overnight. It was going on 11 by this point. But I knew if the cat was going to stay here, it had to have some stuff.

Pet stores are closed. So I run to Wal-Mart, while making a quick call to mom to be sure I get everything I need, and grab cat food, a litter box and all that other stuff as quickly as I can. Drive back home, look inside and the cat is up on the couch, admiring my Atlanta Braves hat.

I get things settled and go to feed it. It must have been starved because it wouldn't even let me get the dish in the floor before it started gulping down food.

I finally settled into my recliner to read a few pages of Matheson. Only this time, it was with a new buddy by my side.

I guess I'm going to let it stay here, at least while I try to find its owner. I can already tell you, though, that I'm not going to be able to just send it away if nobody claims my new pal.

Remind me again why I went looking for books so late last night? Oh, well. Sounded like a good idea at the time.