Axel

I came into work this morning with the top down, it was a beautiful sunny ride in.
I come in early, so I usually get primo parking right next to the stairs on the second level of our parking garage. Since the top was down...even before I got out of the car I heard a cat meowing. It echoed all over the place and sounded distressed, it also sounded like a kitten…altho, I can be a bit of a drama queen (my patient wife is chuckling right now). Of course, I immediately started to look for this distressed and starving kitten. Each time it meowed… I would try to walk in the direction I had heard it from. But then it would stop, clearly because it was near death…and I would have to wait, then again…try to find the poor little thing. I quickly realized I could not do this alone so I went in to get help. I found Brenda. Brenda LOVES cats.
So then the two of us were down there in the parking garage, running one way or another every time we heard the little mew. The sound was bouncing all over the place and was so intermittent that we had a lot of trouble locating the source.
We needed more help, more people to spread out so when he did meow we could move quickly to find the poor starving, frightened and possibly injured little kitten. So Brenda got Joe. Now the three of us are walking around looking up, looking down…looking like we are nuts. I got a flashlight…we checked the drains we looked in all the nooks and crannies we could find. Time was clearly running out, the meowing came less frequently, the situation was dire. But we three were not going to give up – we were going to find this possibly abused or discarded little animal if that was all we did today.
By shear luck-- I think – the cat started meowing again, and we all happened to be standing near this green Altima with out of state plates. It sounded like it was coming from the car.
So there we were, as the parking garage was filling up- the three of us – crouched down around this car. Joe had his ear to one side, and I had mine pressed to the other. At first we thought the cat was in the trunk. But Joe got down under the car with the flashlight, and there he was. The cutest little tabby kitten you could imagine, tucked up behind the rear tire, sitting on the axel. (I will post a pic later, can’t ftp from work).
With some treats from my lunch Brenda was able to get him out. He was dirty and pretty jumpy at first, but he’s still here with us at the office and has eaten most of my lunch already.
We saved his life and named him Axel.