Wednesday, August 6, 2008

“Don’t let the cat out of the bag”



This old adage typically refers to secrets. The concept being that once you tell someone, you will never be able to get it back because that person would tell someone else and so on. Today, Jeremy and I learned firsthand where this phrase originated from. We learned that we don’t let the cat out of the bag, because if we do, all hell will break loose. We had unzipped Olive’s carrier while we were eating lunch, parked in the Safeway lot. She looked up at us but she was comfortable and felt no reason to leave her carrier. Because it had gone so well we saw no reason why we shouldn’t unzip her carrier again. But this time we were driving – it was ok at first, but she became more and more agitated and she wanted to go over to the driver’s side of the cab. She perched up on top of Jeremy’s head rest, which was cute until she quickly crawled down to his feet. At this point we were panicking and were desperately calling her to convince her to come out of her new hiding spot. "Come on kitty, here kitty kitty, get out from underneath the pedals!" This was yelled aloud along with "Oh my god! Get her, get her! ahhh!!" Luckily at this time we came up to a rest stop and were able to get things under control. It wasn’t until later that we realized that the floor on which her carrier was resting was right above the engine, and as a result VERY hot. After more panicking (which included a tear soaked phone call to Mom) we fixed the problem by bringing the cooler to the front and putting that between our two seats and then her carrier on top of that. This way she is off the hot floor and much closer to the air conditioning vents. We were able to cool her down and she is much better now. Needless to say I was a very guilty kitty mama when I realized how hot she was.
Travel tip: Don’t let the cat out of the bag, at least while driving!
(Notes: written on Tuesday, posted on Wednesday; image pictured is not Olive as she is not yet ready for a photo op at this time)

2 comments:

Kathy said...

"Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness!! (from the movie version of Little Orphan Annie, & a phrase we adopted in our family)
re: guilty mama: it's very difficult when our babies are young and just aren't fully articulate on what difficulty they're experiencing!
I'm glad there's a happy ending to Olive's adventures in visiting all corners of the truck and that all is well!
I looked at the pictures on google maps, it looks like a lot of flat land ahead of you-- have fun!
love, Kathy

Anonymous said...

You silly gooses! Well at least your trip is moderately entertaining! This blog is great, such a fantastic idea!!!