Cat in the Room

If you're a Facebook friend of mine you may have heard this story before but it bears repeating. 
A few years ago Petey and I were on our way back home from our PA Christmas visit.  We decided to split the 12 hr drive up and spend the night in OH.  This was before we had Augie or the story would have had a completely different outcome.
Our usual routine is: check in, forage for food, back in the room for some TV, lights out some time between 10 and 11p.  All that happened without incident.
I think it was around 5a when I woke up to see Peter standing by my side of the bed.  He must have shaken me awake - a soft "Ellen, wake up" wouldn't have done it - I sleep with ear plugs.  I looked up at his pale, concerned, (I was going to say "scared shitless" but that would be mean) face and, honestly, I was ready to hear him say he thought he was having a heart attack.
Nope, no heart news.  He woke up for some odd reason and glanced at the chair near his side of the bed and thought he was looking at a skunk sitting on top of the back of the chair!!!  When he reacted in what I can only imagine was some kind of Three Stooges move, the "skunk" jumped off the chair and up onto the window sill behind the curtains.
Now we were both on our feet, bed head and all, wondering what the hell we were going to do about the skunk which we soon found out was a cat; a black and white cat.  We were slightly less frightened upon that discovery.
We thought shooing the cat outside would be a good plan but then we realized it was a pet and didn't want to send it out into the cruel night/morning so we called the front desk.  When the young woman came to our room she said a lady from Rochester, NY had been a motel guest and checked out that morning and her cat ran from her room (not ours) and she spent hours looking for it but had to leave.
We were happy that the owner was notified and was on her way back to pick up her fur baby and even happier when our room was comped.
When I think back on that time, I wonder where the cat hid all night long.  Puzzling.