When you are looking for your cat you ALWAYS start at the top.

"Why is he walking around yelling my name? Well in any case he seems to be enjoying himself, I shouldn't interrupt"

My cat used to absolutely vanish for hours; I would search every conceivable spot a cat could get into and not find her. Then she would nonchalantly wander into whatever room I was in without a care in the world. This happened even after I moved two different times. I finally concluded that she was just an extra-dimensional being that didn't want to spend all its time in my dimension.

Then one day I was looking for her under my bed and I noticed a slight sagging of the fabric on the underside of the box spring. I poked it and sure enough she gave a slightly annoyed meow. A small corner of the fabric had come loose years before and she had just been crawling up into the box spring the whole time.

There are no gods here.

OTHER THAN ME.

"Pathetic"

"Your desperation amuses me. Continue."

Mine sits on top of the fridge like that. I think she went out but she's just trying to find some peace from her daughter's constant harassing

If I say my orange's name in the other end of the house, he comes running to me yowling along the way.

The only thing I've figured out is that he recognizes that I'm not closeby him and he panics lol.

If he doesn't come and I can't find him, I know he's sick or stressed. Only happened a handful of times over the past 13 years. If I'm away for a few days and he's got a sitter, that is usually the biggest trigger.

He really needs a companion cat, but thats hard at 14.

Well imagine the struggle with a tiny black cat...

She basically becomes invisible on any black surface...

I've lost my old man three times this week. First two he was just hanging out behind the curtain. Third time I'm like, I'm going to check behind the curtain! Nope. He was under a desk on top of the air vent. That's how I knew the heat had kicked on.

Willie hears ya, Willie don't care

Well, that's just the life with a cat companion.

My grandmother came to visit, and she had had dogs, but never a cat. So when it got up on top of a dividing wall, she was in a near panic with worry.

She got a step stool, and tried to get him, and he just walked to the other end. She went over there, and he returned to the first place. Now it was just a game.

I told her he'd come down when he was ready, but she was worried he'd fall. He won't fall, but he will get hungry. Then he'll come down.

She worried and worried, but I convinced her to go watch TV, and eventually he wandered into the room when he got lonely.

signature look of superiority

Eh cats don't run away, if they do they usually come back eventually anyways but yeah ... Every single cat owner has had that experience. I know I have!

I just learned eventually that you have to trust the cat is somewhere in the house playing hide and seek really well. They'll show back up for meals or treats. My cat always wanted to go outside but when given the opportunity she often changed her mind and just stayed in. Or when she was outside she stuck close to the door and went back in with me.

We had a flighty young cat, newly rescued, we had locked her in a bathroom downstairs and were trying to get her acclimatized with using the little down there and such.

She went all david copperfield. POOF gone. Searched the whole bathroom/launcry combo. Nothing. There was a ceiling tile out... we searched the whole cleiling of the entire basement. nothing.

back to the bathroom, pulled the washer, the dryer, not hide nor hair.

I poked around, and back behind one of the cabinets, it didn't fit right to the wall, she had climbed in back there.

we replayed that in a new house 12 years later, when I had a central heating duct in the bedroom out to try to install a supplimental blower. that took 2 days and some food to get her out.

My cat (who does know her name), watching me look and call everywhere for her: "Huh, my human is really searching hard for me..."

Yeah ive had that experience. Very scary. Cats won't let you know where they are sometimes.

Welcome to at least once a month for the rest of your shared natural lives. It’s their duty to keep you on your toes.

been there.

now I just run around like a maniac barking like a mad dog if they don't come out after 5 minutes.

That happens pretty often with my partner. She'll be all "I have the door open for 2.3 seconds, did he run away?!" and search for an hour.

Thing is, our cat is very afraid of the outside; he just likes to hide out in cupboards and closets a lot. I seem to be the only one who can find him though.

Mine did this once: not cool.

He made me climb to the roof of my apartment building and be there in the cold like a sentinel, expecting to maybe see him in the nearby streets. That was my last resort. Nothing. Came back to print some flyers of a lost cat, the guy was sleeping behind my games discs, yawning. Not cool.

what is it with cats that they think they're so much better than us

Mines too dumb to know her name. So I just have to go and find her, so she can’t make me look dumb for calling her name repeatedly. Though I do it anyway. So maybe I am dumb too.