Johnson Jinx: Banjo the woodpile cat

I grew up watching a cartoon movie called "Banjo The Woodpile Cat."

It was a cute movie about a kitten that lived in Payson, UT. He was always getting in trouble with his dad because of his sisters, so he decided to hitch a ride on a truck to Salt Lake City so he could have a funner life as a city cat.

Funny things is, this same movie plot just played out for us here at the office.

My cat had kittens back at the end of July, and out of the 6, there were 2 left as of a few weeks ago: Jack and Banjo the devil cat. We decided to bring those two to the office to live so they could ward off any mice that want to intrude. They're outdoor cats, but they kept hanging out by the front door and even pooped by the door once, so we would shoo them to the back anytime we saw them out front.

Yesterday, after painstakingly collecting stool samples from all three of my kids (that's a whole different nightmare involving cups, baggies, and an unearthly stench that I'm sure no one wants to read about), we headed to the doctor to see if we could get to the "bottom" of their symptoms and have their poo examined for bacterial infections. Good thing I have a blog so I could refer to it for writing down the days they'd been sick and their symptoms so I had info handy for the doctor.

Before we left, the cats were snooping around the truck and Hyrum had to chase them away.

On our way to the doctor's office, we had to make a stop at a job site. While I was waiting in the car with the kids, I could hear meowing from somewhere. I wondered if Hyrum had accidentally trapped one of the kittens in the back, so I got out, opened the tailgate, lifted the backflip cover, and peered inside. No kitten to be found. Hmmm. I checked where the kids were sitting, under the bench, by their feet. No kitten. I figured it must be the customer's cat I was hearing.

We then drove on to the doctor's. I had to pay a stinking copay on all three kids, so I'm out $150 in copays this month, then we spent ages waiting, and finally had all the kids checked out thoroughly. The doctor still holds firm to thinking they have a viral infection and that Kiersa just has it so bad since she's so young, but she did decide to have a stool sample checked for giardia or other bacterial infections. Here's the lame part. She couldn't even use any of the samples I'd collected that day since they were too old by the time they could be tested. AAARRRRGGG! How lame that I went through all that "crap" for nothing!

Luckily, Kiersa, who currently doesn't go more than 2 hours without diarrhea, offered us a fresh sample while we were there, so they took that off to be tested and decided that the rest of the kids didn't need to be tested because whatever Kiersa has is probably what the other kids have. Now it's just a waiting game to see what the results are.

Back to my Banjo story...
We left the doctor's office and headed back out to the truck. As we approached it, we saw a black and white kitten (well, it's more like a small cat by now) at the edge of the parking lot, hanging out in the woods, meowing. It was Banjo!!! We couldn't believe it, but it was definitely Banjo, and it made sense since I'd heard the meowing earlier.

So it seems that Banjo got tired of the slow country life in Coquille and wanted to try the exciting life of a city cat in Coos Bay, just like Banjo the Woodpile Cat!! I got a good laugh at the irony.

She stowed away under our truck the whole wet way from Coquille to Coos Bay, stayed under it at the job site, and didn't get down until we were at the doctor's office. We figured we'd let her stay since she seemed to want to be there so bad, and since she's the devil cat who doesn't like to be held or caught, we figured it was useless to attempt to round her up and take her back home.

So good luck, Banjo! May dancing girls befriend you,