Ok Pete..... I rise again to your blog request....
This... unfortunately is a true story, and it happened to me...
It was not long after my divorce and I still had my house, car, three cats and a sense of responsibility.
I should point out here that my cats where mostly house bound cats.... Not because I'm overly protective, more to do with my neighbours being scary fuckwits who weren't particularly bothered what kind of meat went into their pies. The cats did go out into the garden but only for short periods, and while they were out I'd periodically check on the people walking past the house just to make sure their head-gear didn't resemble Davey Crocketts.
At some point during the evening I checked the house (we had been burgled previously) to make sure everything was secure and the catflap locked. I'd gone to bed and fallen asleep.
During the early hours of the morning I was awoken by a loud thud, in my drowsy state a shrugged it off as the cats playing on the stairs (usually a game of Tom & Jerry up and down the stairs was not unusual), so a short but sweet half grumbled, half mumbled "gerroffffeckintwatingstairsyanoisylittlegets" filled the night air.... and I returned to my lonely but peaceful rest.
Some time passed, not sure how long, but enough time to get me back to deep REM sleep. This time I HEARD the smash, it was loud enough to have me bolt upright in bed..... I was awake.... "Just what are those little bastards (the cats) upto down there?" I mumbled to myself. While I waited for my other personalities to wake and answer me I began to make out shapes at the end of my bed as my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness....
"Oh, there you are!" I said to the three cats sitting at the end of the bed.... I waited for the logic of what I was seeing and what I could still hear to sink in.... The cats were upstairs.... on my bed....shivering and cowering with eyes and ears zoned into the slightly ajar bedroom door while the crashing and smashing was still going on downstairs.
"Feck feck feck shite, fat knackers, there's some c*nt in my house" I probably said as I launched out of bed in the direction of the door... Luckily for me my incredible sense of self preservation kicked in and I stopped in my tracks.... If there is someone downstairs ransacking the place I didn't want to be the one on the wrong end of a crowbar or worse....
I dialed the cops....
"Police: what's the problem sir?"
"There's someone in my house..... I'm being burgled"
"Can I take you number and address?"
"555-12345, Number 6 Amersham Crescent..... It's probably the one with the door kicked in and a bloke with a stripy jumper and a bag with swag written on it in the garden"
"ok, we'll send someone round immediately.... Don't go downstairs and stay on the line"
CRASH....BANG.....WALLOP"
"Feck, there's must be two of them, I can hear things being thrown around in the living room and noises from the kitchen too....."
"Ok, officers are on their way...keep calm"
"......hmmmm......errrmmmm.....ok"
At this point I thought it might be a good idea to retrieve a piece of my broken bed and potentially use it as a weapon if the 6 ft gorilla who was smashing my living room up decided to venture upstairs... So there I was, bollock naked at the top of my stairs with a bit of 2x4 in one hand and phone in the other.....and three cats egging me on.
SMASH...CRASH.....
"Where the hell are those coppers?"... it's been like.... minutes...
I plucked up courage to just peek over the banister, see if I could see anyone on the stairs....
and I did.....
It was a cat..... not my cat either..... some bloody neighbours cat... then another appeared.... two cats....
Two cats that had broken in through the cat flap, and couldn't get back out again!
Two cats that had panicked and rampaged throughout the downstairs looking for a way out!
Two cats that were not 6ft burglars.
Two cats that had a bunch of coppers racing towards my house, night stick poised and pepper spray ready....
Two cats that were going to make me look very very silly.
I did attempt to tell the dispatcher about the two cats, but just as I did two cop cars rolled up outside and six of the biggest coppers I've ever seen marched up the drive.... I opened the bedroom window and let them know I was ok and it was a false alarm, but as they didn't know me from a burglar they kindly instructed me to open the door or they'd smash it down....
There's no point in explaining further, my embarrassment was sealed. After proving my identity and seeing several cats destroy what items I had left the coppers saw the funny side and left....
...and yes, I've heard all the "cat burglar" jokes.
