Okay. So I get home from work today, looking forward to having a functioning
kitchen light for the first time in a couple of months. I was a little
confused because it was a ceiling fan, not a replacement of the fluorescent
thing that had been up there. And then I looked around and notice something
exceedingly odd. My window was open. WIDE open. So were the blinds. And I
could only see the one cat, sitting on the bed, watching me. What's the
first thing I do? Tear around the apartment hunting for my other two, and my
absolutely petrified foster cat. None of them to be found. I flung open the
window and yelled 'here kitty kitty kitty' several times, and to my great
relief, my orange tabby Pandora pops up and meows at me, running toward the
window. By this time, I had called my landlord because I had requested
maintenance on the light. The receptionist calls back to tell me that both
the maintenance man and the maintenance manager insist THEY didn't open any
windows. At that point, I'm outside digging my shaved-a-week-ago new cat out
of one of those odd gutters built into the ground to keep the earth and
runoff away from the basement windows. I told the woman my cats don't have
opposable thumbs, so getting the window open is impossible for them, and
then hung up on her. I found the foster cat smashed against the wall, under
the bed, too afraid to move. Everybody's alright, though I'm still pissed
off about it, and wondering how far I take this. I'll talk to the complex
manager on Monday (I don't have any choice, between office hours and my work
schedule, that's the first day I have off that they're open). I don't know
if I want the stupid bastard fired or reprimanded, or just to admit that he
did, in fact, leave the window open.

What makes me so angry is that I work for a humane society... yes, I know I
should have them all collared and tagged, but collars and tags help people
contact the owner, they don't prevent the cat from getting into all the
trouble they can get into when allowed outside in an admittedly bad
neighborhood... so I'm aware of all these risks... but there were inches of
snow on the ground this morning! It was below freezing on my way to work,
and not much better than that on my way home. I'm so grateful they're okay
and they were smart enough not to go far and they were smart enough to
respond when I called (all Peaches did was meow loudly, but it was enough to
find her)... but I'm SO furious that they lied! I mean, the window has a
latch that you have to lift and hold while you're opening the window. My
cats, smart as they are, don't tend to cooperate to get into the cabinets,
much less open a friggin' window. Any cat that wants out is going to squeeze
through the smallest space, not open it three feet wide first. Plus, I have
those lovely venetian blinds that only open or close or rotate if you use
the hangy-turny thing to do so, and my cats can't open the blinds or rotate
them the opposite direction of the way -I- always turn them (so that the
slits of light don't reflect on the computer screen). AUGH! I want to pummel
the man into a leaking mass of bloody goo.