cat on a hot tin north hollywood

I like hearing stories about Brian's childhood. Brian, the basis for the Tom character in "We Need Girlfriends," is clearly the most mature out of all of us, so it's hard to picture him as a kid.

But one of my favorite, and saddest, young Brian stories involve his childhood cat Smokey. One day, Smokey climbed high into a Memphis tree, too high for it to get down. So, Brian's parents called the fire department and asked them to get Smokey down. The fire department told Brian's parents, "We don't do that kind of stuff anymore." And Brian never saw Smokey again.

Today, Brian returned from the gym in our apartment building and said, "There's a cat in the stairway, just sitting there. I said, 'Hi cat.' Then I shook my keys at it."

A few hours later, I went to the gym, and there was that same cat, sitting there and meowing.

I went downstairs and told Brian, "That cat is still there."

We speculated that it might be a stray. The front door to the building had been open all day, so it was quite possible that this cat could have snuck in that way.

"Well, what should we do?" I asked Brian. "Should we give it some milk or something?"

So, Brian and I went up to the stairwell and brought the cat a little saucer of milk.






I told Brian that maybe this cat is the reincarnated spirit of Smokey. Or, perhaps, Smokey finally found his way back home, after over twenty years of traveling.





I just went back to check on Smokey and it's still up there, meowing away. Did anyone lose a cat in North Hollywood? If not, how does one take care of a cat? Please help us.