If you have ever been honked at in traffic, you know the feeling. The shoulders go up. The first thought is rarely a kind one.
Nicole Motahari and her husband, Brandon Lou, had that moment on a Friday morning in Sandy Springs, Georgia, just outside Atlanta. It was October 9. They had stopped at the Publix on Abernathy to pick up birthday cupcakes for the journalism students Motahari teaches at North Springs High School.
Then a woman pulled up behind them, leaning on her horn.
“After we left, suddenly, this woman came up on us, honking her horn like crazy,” Motahari told Rough Draft Atlanta. “She said, ‘There’s a cat hanging under your car.’”
Where Do You Look for a Cat Under a Car?
The couple stopped in the middle of the road, in rush-hour traffic, and searched. They found nothing. So they drove on toward the school, carefully, until they heard it: a faint “mew, mew” from the front right side of the car.
The passenger was a black kitten, and he was wedged in the wheel well. Atlanta News First reported that he was trapped in the car’s shock absorber. Either way, he was in no hurry to come out.
“It ultimately took three firefighters and two police officers from Sandy Springs to free our very small (and apparently very determined) stowaway,” Motahari said. “We believe he must have climbed into the car at our condo complex, Stonington, and managed to hang on for the ride to Publix and part of the way to school. Not exactly the morning commute any of us had planned.”
The couple’s condominium complex sits about a mile from the store. That is a long way for a kitten to hold on.
How Small Is 1.2 Pounds?
Here is the part that says something about the people in that car. Motahari and Lou took the kitten straight to a veterinarian. The vet put his age at about six weeks and his weight at 1.2 pounds. Picture a cat you could hold in one hand.
“Naturally, after all that excitement, we couldn’t exactly send him on his way. So now we have a kitten,” Motahari said. “We are feeding him whenever he wants until he gets up to 2 pounds.”
They named him Friday Shadow. The name needs no explanation.
Then there is the timing. Motahari and Lou were married on Halloween. A small black cat turned up under their car about three weeks before the anniversary.
“Somehow, this tiny black kitten managed to show up just in time to become the most unexpected anniversary present we could have imagined,” she said.
A Houdini in the House
Friday Shadow has not lost his talent for squeezing into places. “With a cat that small, there’s no safe space,” Motahari said. “He disappeared under a bathroom cabinet. We couldn’t find him, then we opened the drawer, and there he was.”
He seems none the worse for his morning in the wheel well. He spends most of his days cuddling and insisting on the couple’s full attention. The cat is recovering well in his new home.
Motahari gives the credit to the people who showed up. She told Rough Draft Atlanta that the firefighters and police officers who freed him are the real story.
“They went out of their way to save a tiny little life, and thanks to them, Friday is now safe, spoiled, and settling into his new home,” she said.
Five people answered a call about a kitten in a wheel well and worked at it until he was out. One stranger leaned on her horn instead of driving past.
The next time someone honks behind you, it may be worth a second look. Sometimes the driver back there is doing you a favor.
