GEORGIA – After five long weeks in exile, Peaches, the stowaway cat, is headed home.
Back in August, the gray tabby cat managed to climb inside a sofa just as it was being donated to a thrift store. Neither Peaches’ family, nor the truck drivers, nor any of the store owners were at all aware that the green couch hid a secret passenger.
Stephanie Cunningham, who lives in Cumming, went to the No Longer Bound Thrift Store the very next day, and said, “I’m going to ask you the strangest question you’ve ever heard, but did a cat come with any of these couches?”
Absolutely no one had seen a cat because Peaches was keeping ‘laying loe’.
“They looked at me like I had three eyes,” stated Cunningham.
(Incidentally, this wasn’t the first time a cat ended up in a thrift store, by way of couch.)
Then some strange things began happening within the store, which is located at 315 Dahlonega Street. Something kept tripping the motion sensors at night, but there was no evidence of any unlawful entry.
Finally, some weeks later, Peaches finally made an appearance on a security camera. Store employee Crystal Streetman carefully managed to lure the hungry cat out of a hole in the wall and took her home. Streetman knew that a sofa-donor was looking for a cat, but unfortunately, no one at the store had saved any contact information.
The 8-pound kitty’s rightful owners learned about her recovery after a news team wrote about it in the AJC and a friend called the Cunninghams to tell them about the story.
“I was shaking all morning,” stated Stephanie Cunningham on Friday. She had almost given up on ever seeing Peaches again. “My kids were devastated.”
Peaches is an extremely shy cat, and when new people come into the house she immediately hides, either under the bed or in the liner of the couch. She just so happened to pick the worst day to hide inside a sofa.
The Cunninghams are currently planning to pick up Peaches Saturday at No Longer Bound.
The store is a non-profit operation which benefits a recovery program for men addicted to drugs or alcohol.
Stephanie and Kirk Cunningham and their children, Cole, 16 and Reese, 14, will be thrilled to have Peaches back in the house.
“Reese just had a birthday,” stated Stephanie, “and she said this was the best late birthday present ever.”
