Mouse!

Ah, Fall.

Erin sat on the couch last night, feeding little Al. Our two big kids lay asleep in their beds and the house had settled into a beautiful calm. Joan, our cat, hopped up on the couch beside Erin.

"Hello, Joan." said Erin. She then noticed the ass end (including still-wriggling tail) of a mouse sticking out of Joan's mouth.

"Ew! Ew.ew.ew.ew.ew.ew.ew.ew!" she cried, leaping from the seat with the baby still attached.

I chased the cat up the stairs to try and get the mouse from her. I knew that if I left Joan alone, she'd play with the thing for hours and then triumphantly deliver its corpse to Erin.

I found Joan in our spare room. She had just released the mouse (for sport), and it had escaped behind a shelf. I moved the shelf. Joan caught the mouse again and ran out of the room. I was hoping she wouldn't take it into the kids' room. She did not. After a silly, silent television-style chase, I managed to get the mouse trapped under a garbage bucket.

It was still alive. For all its time in my cat's mouth, that mouse faired pretty well. I let it go outside, confident it wouldn't return to do battle with Joan again.

PS: Did I ever tell you we call all mice in our house "Pete Daitch"? As in, "Did I tell you Joan caught Pete Daitch again last night?" I was trying to remember why, when I remembered that Erin had once made a delicious batch of peach/date muffins. They were so good, I mixed up my consonants.

Me: These pete daitch muffins are awesome.

Erin: Thanks. Who is Pete Daitch?

Me: Ummm.... that mouse Joan caught last night. Silly fellow, really.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

As a cat owner, I know how you feel. Over here it can be even worse, given the dizzying array of small creatures we have. We've had to drag Smokey away from huge insects, poisonous frogs, lizards, bats, mice, birds, giant poisonous centipedes, and once even a small dog. And that was all inside the house. Outside...well, he's had even crazier adventures outside.