My husband and I were dressed to the nines, ready for a perfect evening \u2014 dinner, theater, romance, the whole thing. We had one simple plan before leaving: put the cat in the backyard and leave a light on, just so the house wouldn\u2019t look empty. Easy. Quick. No drama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But in our house, \u201cno drama\u201d is impossible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As soon as we opened the door to meet our Uber, our round, overly confident cat shot between our legs like a furry bowling ball and sprinted inside the house. Straight upstairs. Straight toward the parakeet she loves terrorizing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My husband groaned, muttered something about \u201cjust five minutes,\u201d and dashed inside to catch her. Meanwhile, I waited awkwardly in the Uber, trying not to look like a woman whose life was falling apart one pet at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not wanting the driver to think our house would be empty for hours \u2014 you never know these days \u2014 I blurted out the first excuse that came to mind:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOh, my husband will be right back. He\u2019s just\u2026 saying goodnight to my mother.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That sounded normal, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few minutes later, my husband came back outside, red-faced and sweating, hair sticking up like he\u2019d been battling demons. He slid into the back seat and said \u2014 loudly, breathlessly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSorry about that! I had to put her back in the yard. She was trying to escape again!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Uber driver\u2019s eyes went wide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I froze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My husband froze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then it hit us both \u2014 the awful realization:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The driver thought we had put my mother<\/strong> in the backyard. Silence. Pure, heavy silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I tried to fix it. I tried. I really did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo, no! He means the cat! Not my\u2014\u201d We spent the entire ride praying he wouldn\u2019t call the police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the time we got to the restaurant, we were laughing so hard we could barely breathe. Our romantic evening turned into two hours of wiping tears and repeating,<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNot the mother\u2026 the cat\u2026 THE CAT!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes your night out doesn\u2019t start with candlelit elegance \u2014 My husband and I were dressed to the nines, ready for a perfect evening \u2014 dinner, theater, romance, the whole thing. We had one simple plan before… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
And that she had tried to escape.
Again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the driver just kept nodding calmly like he\u2019d heard enough horror stories to last a lifetime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
sometimes it starts with your Uber driver thinking you imprison your mother in the backyard.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"