[blackdog]

I was driving down a country road and saw what I thought was a headless cat in the ditch, so I stopped to see. It was a dead cat that suffocated when it stuck its head into a tight fitting potato chip bag.

I picked it up to take it home and bury it in our "barn cat" graveyard. A few miles from home I looked down on the passenger side floor and the cat wasn't there. I looked behind the seat and a kitty version of Cujo, turned the truck cab into a claws out spitting screaming blender of fur, spit, and scratches.

Just enough air was passing thru the tight fitting bag to keep it deeply unconscious. When I removed the bag the hypoxia suffocation began to reverse and i had no idea. I had to stop the truck in the middle of the road with the doors open so it could get out.

[Telepathic Intruder]

I have no “cat cemetery”, so I would have just left it in the ditch. But by chance you did. Maybe kitty-Cujo has someone up there watching out for it.

[rlmorel]

I had two incidents in my life involving animals that "come to life" that stuck out-

One involved an owl that had been hit by a truck, and it was still alive but unresponsive. There was a raptor center about five miles away (oddly) so I found a naugahyde zip up bag in the car that was big enough to hold it put the barred owl inside ( a medium to large sized owl) so I zipped it, leaving about two inches unzipped to give it some air.

My wife drove, and I was in the passenger seat with the insensate owl on the floor in front of me between my legs.

Suddenly, the bag starts moving around, and a great, big yellow talon with unimaginably long claws shoots out of the unzipped area we left open for air! I pulled up my legs as best I could, gulping as I watched that disembodied talon swiping around in the air between my legs!!

Fortunately we were close, so we delivered the owl to them. They sent us a card later telling us they released it back into the wild...someone told me they send a card like that to everyone who drops a bird off, whether it is dead or released!

The other time was when I was on a state park in Maryland when I was maybe 13 or 14, and being a stupid kid, I lured a mallard over by sprinkling pebbles in the hope of making it think I was throwing down food. It worked until the bird stopped and eyed me warily, maybe 15 feet away. I wound up and threw the stone figuring it was about to fly away, and unbelievably, the stone hit it. I had no idea was actually going to hit it, I didn't have a great arm or anything...but I did.

As I ran over the dead duck, there was a large red sign right above where the duck lay. It said "Harming wildlife on this reservation is a $10,000 fine and/or 2 years in jail."

I gaped up at the sign, and my first thought was "My dad is going to kill me." I snatched up the duck, shoved it under my jacket, and turned to walk past the entrance guard shack. Just as I drew even with him, the dead duck under my jacket became un-dead, and began to frantically wiggle about! I ran out into the street and let that damn duck out where the guard couldn't see me!

My all time favorite reference to this phenomenon is in the excellent and under appreciated movie "Tommy Boy":