The other day I was visiting a friend, while we talked and did some D&D character work. Chill Sunday night kind of thing.

He got a phone call, so I was taking it easy when I started to hear the muffled meows of one of this cats (specifically the one that is terrible at cat-like behaviors and often prone to doing something he can’t get out of). So, being the sucker for a cat in distress that I am, I start looking for the source. My friend has me check the nearby rooms with closed doors, as he can hear it too. No cat.

The call ends and the friend heads to the other end of the house to check some other areas a cat could get stuck, and I realize the meow may be coming through a window. So I step outside and walk around the exterior to the driveway.

To find this little black cat I was looking for, staring up at the window to the room we were in, only two turns and a few feet from the door he used to leave the domicile, making the saddest pity-mews you could imagine. He had gotten lost just past his own door, and when I appeared – as a human he recognized – I was the greatest savior ever.

So the cat rushes over to me with relief and lets me guide him the ten feet around the corner back to the walkway home. And in his joy this cat, who as I mentioned does not do cat-things, starts nuzzling my ankles in sheer abandonment, winding around my feet in the most feline way possible. Because I “walked him home”. My friend comes out just in time to see this and is utterly confused, because he goes on to confirm that he has never seen this cat behave in this manner. Getting lost, sure – easy enough. Affection in nuzzles, never.

I realized then that I had just performed a WoW-level of escort mission… find NPC in unreasonable distress over a rather short-sighted situation, walk at a halting pace back to safety, and then receive rewards that are not even remotely connected to the amount of effort that was or was not expended.