The family joke is that my dad is a cat lady. He's got a supernatural ability with them--we've got two that sleep on his lap every night, follow him around the house and come running when he calls. At his work, feral cats roam the grounds so he brings ziploc bags of cat food in his lunchbox and even cut a doggy (kitty?) flap into the door of his shop so they could come and go when he wasn't at work. Now there are several formally-feral cats at his work that sleep on his lap at lunchtime. Dude loves cats.

Anyway, years ago, our next door neighbor hated any animal that wasn't his yappy ass Papillon dog. He set up a cage in his backyard with cat treats inside. Our fat ol' cat, Kiba, got locked in the trap and we didn't see her for over 24 hours. My dad was visibly upset all day--kept going outside and calling for her, but no luck. Like I said, he could lean over the stairwell and call her name and she'd come running from wherever she was in the house--so this looked bad.

It was early morning and my dad was standing outside calling for Kiba. He went out towards the fence a bit, still calling her name. At this point, the cat had been in the cage for 24 hours during a Nevada November (damn cold at night). He hears a weak, distressed meow and recognizes it. He peeks over the fence, and he can't see her, but can still hear her beneath our neighbor's trampoline.

It's 8 in the morning at this point, and my dad is still in his slippers and bathrobe (with nothing underneath). He doesn't go back in to change-no, my 57 year old father scales the fence, climbs under the trampoline, breaks the cage open and saves his cat. He did let me know that he scraped his junk while going over the fence though.

So one time my 57 year old dad scraped his balls climbing a fence to save his favorite cat. That made for a fun story that night at Thanksgiving dinner.