'Odyssey' of the Meow

Cars aren't supposed to meow.

At best, when their engines are running properly, they may "purr like a kitten," but that's not what Cranford resident Lisa Ford heard when she started up her Honda Odyssey minivan and set out to run some errands with her young daughter.

Ford only made it a few blocks from her home when she heard a "strange sound" emanating from her car that grew harder and harder to dismiss.

"After turning off the radio, pulling over twice and checking under my van, it was evident that there must be an animal stuck somewhere in my vehicle that I could not see," Ford wrote in a letter to her local Chamber of Commerce.

"Dread and fear" overcame her just a few blocks from the , so Ford pulled in to ask the mechanics there to take a look.

Sunoco owner Kurt Petschow test drove the vehicle but didn't hear anything at first. A few blocks later the noise started up again. He pulled over and began inspecting the children's toys in the car, squeezing each one to see if could be squeaking. No luck.

Meanwhile, at the service station office, Ford was getting the hint that it was shaping up to be a very busy morning. Yet "not once did [Petschow] suggest that I was inconveniencing him or his staff," she wrote.

After two hours and the removal of several of her car's components, the service crew pinpointed the kitten's hiding place: the front passenger wheel well.

Uninjured, the next stop for the gray, eight-week-old kitten was a Westfield veterinarian's office. All that was left was to give her a name.

They settled on "Odyssey."

Ford asked what she owed her heroic troubleshooters for their efforts, but they wouldn't take any money.

"We were more than happy to do this," Petschow said.

One of the clerks at the station fostered Odyssey, and within a few days, one of the mechanics there had adopted her. It seemed a good fit.

Among other things, they already knew they shared a love of cars.