Good-bye Joey

We haven't seen Joey, our cat, for over three weeks now.  He got outside the first day that I was gone with the kids for our trip out to Indiana.  Since Aaron was not home very much that week, he was not around to see Joey to let him back in.  Apparently, Joey gave up hope of getting let back in the house and wandered away.  The kids have taken it surprisingly well, though they occasionally express some sadness about being cat-less.  I am pretty okay with it.  While I miss having a warm fuzzy body to sit on me when I'm reading, I don't miss cleaning up cat litter, cat hair, the occasional hairball, and dealing with Joey's nerosis.  He hated all cats.  If you own a different cat and smell like that cat, Joey would then hate you.  That hatred apparently applied to himself as well, as he could go through spells of licking himself until he was raw and bloody.  He was going through a particularly bad spell of that when he disappeared.  It was quite a disturbing thing to see and witness.  So I'm happy to not be dealing with that.  I think we will remain cat-less for awhile now and enjoy some time without a feline.  I think when we do get another cat, I will be very particular about what we bring into our home as our last two cats have had issues.  Joey's issues have already been explained.  The previous cat decided that David's very large lego box made a better litterbox than her own real litter box.  Even when we put a lid on the lego box, she would find the softball size hole in the lid and pee through that.  That cat was lucky to leave my house alive the third time I had to clean out all those legos.  She left our house that day.  I like cats, but definitely couldn't deal with that.  She's a happy outdoor cat now, living at my parents' house where she can poop and pee where ever she desires.