Beep and the Phantom Cat

As I posted last week, Beep ran away for a bit, tramped around Amsterdam and found himself (in the arms of a Red Light District post-op reverse catsexual), and was recaptured by my friend Michelle sleeping under my neighbor's car.

After happily snuggling him helpless, I kept him inside for a few days until I could get a tag and a collar for him. I got him a cute little black one with a bell on it, so that I'd always be able to tell him apart from his doppelganger siblings, born of the same feral mother who led him away from the litter when she thought he was going to infect the others with an upper respiratory infection.

He kept the collar on, thankfully, because Romulus (the other cat) managed to get his off easily. Yesterday he came in to eat, and didn't have his collar on. I was a little bummed, but figured I'd get another one without a safety catch on it. Well, this morning he came back again, with his collar back on.

One of three things happened:

1. The Beep who wasn't wearing a collar wasn't really Beep at all, and was actually one of his sly evil siblings coming in for a free meal. Which is creepy to me, because I picked him up and snuggled him.
   
2. Whoever was feeding him before, when he was gone for five days, took the collar off of him when he came over to get a free meal.
3. Beep has developed opposable thumbs and a higher cognizance, and is totally fucking with me.
   

None of those options rests well with me, except option 2, in which whoever took the collar off of him realized that someone out there probably loved him very much, and decided to return the collar (and cat) to it's rightful owner.

-Sean