True Stories #430 - Catastrophe

Oh no! The black cat Nemo had gone missing. The story of his return is a crazy one.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
I'm Seth Andrews, and what you're about to hear is
a true story. This event just happened. It was reported
by Koomie Tucker of WNYT News in Albany, New York.
It is a lost pet story, but stick with me

(00:25):
because the story has a happy ending. Rachel Jones of
Fulton County traveled a lot. She was going to be
away from home for a long time, and so she
had hired in house pet sitters, a couple, Jasmine Johnson
and Dylan Laporte. They loved cats, made some extra money
cats sitting, and they had their hands full in the

(00:48):
Jones house because Rachel Jones had no fewer than four cats.
So imagine their shock and dismay when suddenly one of
those four went missing, the black cat Nemo. Now this
couple had one job care for the cats, keep them
fed and happy and safe, and now they lost one.

(01:10):
Jasmine and Dylan searched with increasing concern. They moved furniture,
checked under chairs, couches and beds. They combed through closets
and scanned every nook and corner. Nothing, no Nemo. He
was gone. You can imagine how alarmed and scared they were,
how are they going to tell Rachel Jones that they

(01:31):
had lost one of her furry children. Word got to
the neighbors. They joined in on the search, and it
was a neighbor, a woman named Kelly Aleskis, who saved
the day. She arrived with the news that Nemo had
been spotted outside in Northville. Now Northville is a village

(01:52):
in the northern part of Northampton and Fulton County, not
far but certainly far from home, and these two house
sitters were so relieved as Kelly Alescas the neighbor, grabbed
the cat, scooped him up and brought him home. And
Nemo was obviously glad to be home. In fact, he

(02:13):
seemed overwhelmingly glad. I mean he had been a friendly
cat before, but after his return he was much more affectionate,
constantly rubbing and cuddling and purring. All was right with
the world again, and Jasmine and Dylan would not be
responsible for losing a beloved cat in their care. A

(02:34):
day passed, then a couple of days, four days, seven days.
The homeowner was still away, the cat sitters still inside
the house, watching over the property. In the home, and
the five cats not four, as there were supposed to
be five. They did another quick count just to be sure. One, two, three, four,

(02:57):
five cats and the fifth was a blame black cat
that looked exactly like Nemo. They suddenly were launched into
a whole different kind of investigation. The head count was
now too high. Turns out Nemo had been inside the
house the whole time, but he was a sneaky one
and simply stayed out of sight. And that replacement cat

(03:22):
mistaken for Nemo, well, what I'm about to tell you
seems kind of unbelievable. But remember the neighbor, Kelly Aleskis,
the one who had spotted Nemo out near Northville. At
the same time she had scooped up and retrieved and
returned the wrong Nemo to the Jones house, she found

(03:42):
herself in a terrible spot of losing one of her
own kitties, also a black cat, an outdoor cat, which
had suddenly gone missing. I am not kidding. The neighbor's
own cat, Sydney, and the supposedly lost Nemo identical looking.

(04:04):
Kelly Aleskis had grabbed Sydney and returned him to the
Jones home, not realizing she had just given up one
of her own She admitted that the mix up had
happened because well, Nemo was an exclusively indoor cat and
Sydney hung out outside, so seeing a black cat outdoors

(04:26):
in this circumstance made her think it was the lost Nemo.
It's crazy. All parties have since been reunited, all cats
have been accounted for, and all is right with the
world in Fulton County. But still I am stuck wondering
if I could ever accidentally misidentify one of my own pets.

(04:49):
I mean, these are members of the family. We are
intimately aware of their quirks and idiosyncrasies and personalities. Wouldn't
anybody and everybody know the difference between their own cats
or dog or whatever and somebody else's. Well, regardless, the
lesson remains, look closely if you are ever presented with

(05:09):
a lost pet scenario. After all, your Nemo could be
a Sydney and your little runaway might just have been
a hideaway all along. And that is a true story.

(05:30):
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