Iggy: Misunderstood and Missing

So tragedy struck our household a few weeks ago. Schuyler’s beloved cat Iggy was sanctimoniously thrown outside by our former roommates, and has yet to return. You see we have an inside cat with outside privileges, De La Cruz, and an inside cat only, Iggy. Mostly due to the fact that De La Cruz likes to hunt lizards under our front porch and lay in the sun. Iggy, on the other hand, was adopted later in life, and has a distinct aversion to the outside world. He has never once tried to run outside when we’ve left the door propped open while carrying groceries. In fact, if someone opened the front door he was more likely to run and hide under our bed. We made this clear to our roommates: the long haired one goes out, and the one without the tail doesn’t. But, we thought to ourselves, Iggy doesn’t go near the door, is terrified of the outdoors, so this is a moot point.


Now, I will admit- Iggy was not the friendliest cat. Sometimes he peed on the extra-fuzzy rugs in our house because they reminded him of grass. He didn’t have a tail so he was the dingleberry king and I was always chasing after him with a Kleenex. He drooled. He wasn’t affectionate. He didn’t come when you called him. He was over all a class-A curmudgeon.

But he was Schuyler’s curmudgeon. And a grumpy cat is no reason to throw him outside because he wandered into your room. But none-the-less, he got the boot while we weren’t home. And since Iggy is a quiet hider, we didn’t notice he was gone until the next day.

We spotted him under the neighbor’s garage, but he ran away from us. He hasn’t come to our front door. We’ve canvassed the neighborhood and put up fliers. We’ve called the shelters. We will continue calling the shelters.

This was all the end of May. We haven’t had an Iggy sighting in weeks. We are coming to grips that he might be gone, and it breaks my heart to know wherever he is, if he’s still alive he’s terrified and hungry. And if he’s not still alive… well I just can’t live with that thought. Because he was a good cat. He slept in my elbow at night. He licked Schuyler’s chin after showers. He regularly punched Lulu in the face when she was acting like a lunatic--but never used his claws. He would cry at the door if we were giving De La Cruz a bath, knowing his housemate was miserable. He was an old soul.

Goodbye, Igglesworth. Iggy pot pie. Biggles. I’m so sorry we weren’t able to protect you from the big, bad world after all.

Christmas 2009