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This past weekend, I was at a funeral in North Carolina, which isn’t happy news. But, while there, there were many cats and kittens wandering out into the parking lot from a carport the church owns.

Apparently, people from the church feed and take care of the cats, which is really nice, since a lot of places just round up cats and “get rid of them.”

Most of the kittens were a little too scared to let me near them but I did pet a charming little grey and white cat.

After the funeral, which was for my fiance’s mother—an incredible woman who was an EMT until she retired—we went back to my fiance’s parents’ house and some people came back from the church.

Later, after everyone had pretty much cleared out, I went out into the driveway, ready to head back home.

And I saw a little black and white cat who looked a lot like the medium-age cats at the church inasmuch as body style and markings.

She was just standing in the driveway in the dark, looking not quite lost but displaced.

I don’t know if this cat hitched a ride under one of the cars from the church back to my fiance’s house, but I kind of think she did.

A few years back, I stopped on a road because there was a kitten in it and the kitten actually climbed up into my car’s engine. A police officer helped me get it out and I brought it home. The police officer took a picture because he said, “This is the second time this has happened to me in two weeks, and if I don’t take a picture of it, no one will ever believe me!” He told me that another woman had found a kitten in her engine after driving to the store.

Unfortunately, that kitten was very small, starved and sickly, and passed away a day later. But, at the time, it opened my eyes to the fact that cats will hitch (on purpose or accident, who knows?) a ride in a car more often than not.

Here are a couple of videos of some others this has happened to:

A lot of people warn about cats climbing into automobile engines during the winter to keep warm, but this happened on a very hot July day. So, if you are around outdoor cats somewhere any time of the year, it’s probably a good idea to check under the hood of your car and above your tires before driving off.

Anyway, I knew I had to approach this little cat carefully if it was one from the church because I figured it would be skittish and I didn’t want it to run into the really busy road in front of the house.

I sat down in the driveway and called the kitty until it came to me.

And, when it did, I put it in the car. My fiance came out of the house to see why I hadn’t left yet and looked at me like I was crazy, but also with the resigned look of, “yeah, this is gonna happen,” because he knows me all too well.

My fiance lives with me but was going to stay with his dad for a few days, so I drove home alone with the cat on my lap for most of the ride.

The cat was remarkably calm, even when it started pouring rain and thundering, and as I was navigating curvy country road home in the dark, stormy night with very low visibility, stopping at a Dollar General for kitten chow and cat litter on the way. I guess it was probably a better ride for the kitty on the inside of the car than one she might have had on the undercarriage.

So, here’s Poussey, who is named after one of the characters on “Orange is the New Black,” because they seem to have similar personalities.

The character on the show was very petite and sweet, and kind of lost her way in the big city but ended up on a big adventure. Our Poussey, who is sort of in that in-between stage between kitten, is very petite and also very sweet, and definitely ended up on an adventure. Btw: For a pretty funny look at the characters on “Orange is the New Black” as cats, click here.

My fiance thinks Poussey might have come from his own neighborhood, which would make for a less exciting story, and that may be true. I’ve been checking lost cat sites to see if anyone is missing him, but haven’t seen anything. Also, I’ve been to my fiance’s parents’ house numerous times and never seen a cat there before.

At any rate, after a couple of days, Poussey is settling in and getting along pretty well with our other two cats and two dogs. In fact, she is very mellow and pretty much seems to just take everything in stride — as long as there is plenty of petting for reassurance. 

But she’s going to be a strictly indoor cat from now on, especially because we don’t want the little adventurer to hitch a ride away from her new forever home.