Yawning, I shuffled over to the food bowl.
This was a mistake. A big one.
So, I admit that I am a total hypocrite in that if I thought about what I was actually eating, meat-wise, and thought about the fact that this on my plate was a living being with parents and instincts, I would choose to be a vegetarian. But because I love bacon and 6 oz sirloins cooked medium well, I choose to not think about these things. I choose to totally indulge my carnivorous taste buds in moments of pure selfish delights - aka yummy meateriffic dinner. And that's what makes what I'm about to tell you a heinous exercise in bigotry.
As I said, I shuffled over to the food bowl and initially saw that it was full. In fact Casey, as usual, had placed one of his toy mice in the bowl so that he could shake it, like a true predator, and then enjoy the "kill" of Iam's Indoor, Weight and Hairball Formula.
On closer inspection, I realized that what was in his food bowl was not one of the toys Rich and I usually find a year later under the sofa, but a REAL
Casey has been known to bring in field mice from outside, usually to play with them. He brings them in, drops them, they run, he chases, Rich runs behind them with a plastic cup (wrathful curses flooding the room), I snicker to myself quietly in another room. Casey catches the mouse and carries it back outside. There is a stern lecture (given by Rich) about a cat's job being to keep mice OUT of the house, not to bring them IN. I'm certain (though I haven't actually seen it) that then some eye-rolling occurs followed by a slammed door. And then we all breathe in. We all breathe out.
Until today, Casey had never killed a mouse, much less dropped it in his food bowl for us to marvel at. And that explains the copious amounts of purring attention:"Hey look, Ginger! I'm a contributing member of this household. Look what I can do! I'm both protector and provider!"
My initial reaction was, "Casey J. Daisy-Hunter, get in this kitchen right now! What is this?! Explain yourself!" followed by, "Oh my God. Poor little mouse. Should I have a funeral for it? Do we have a matchbox to bury it in? What will I say in my eulogy? I know the perfect burial plot - to the right of Bagel's grave, but a little left of the patio. Should I even invite Casey to the service? It's so sad. Do NOT think about the movie Ratatoullie! My cat (sniff) is a MONSTER!" followed by, "Oh Jesus. I'm not touching it. Should I wake-up Rich? Shit. What do I do?"
So here's what I did - I blogged about it. Well, actually, I did wake-up Rich to tell him and his reply was, "I'll take care of it later." My response was, "OK, but I hope it's still in the food bowl when you decide to get up."** And now I'm blogging about it. I can't go back into the kitchen, even though a fresh cuppa is beckoning to me. And I guess I'm happy that Casey decided to put the mouse carcass in his food bowl and not in my shoe or on my pillow. And technically, I should support the fact that my domesticated cat still has predator-like skills and is not (gasp!) a kitty vegetarian. But I am very much a domesticated pet owner. I don't like prey appearing in my kitchen. (she said as she decided to fry bacon for breakfast - after the mouse removal takes place, of course)
See? A total hypocrite.
** In my defense, according to our wedding vows, Rich is in charge of the discarding of all things heinous/dead/gross. I'm in charge of yelling in the direction of said thing before it gets discarded.
6 comments:
I LOVE this story! I can totally see you in your kitchen discovering this mouse and all your thoughts going through your mind! So will there be a funeral for the sweet little field mouse?!
My question for your is WHY where you up at 6:30?
I’m not sure exactly how I became in charge of all gross jobs. I don’t think it was in the vows – we’ll have to check the video. I did take care of it though when I finally dragged myself out of bed. I definitely have mixed feelings about Casey’s mighty hunting exploits. On one hand it’s pretty impressive that he can catch anything since he has no front claws. But as I am not nearly as excited about chasing a mouse around the living room as the cat seems to be, I wish Casey were more like all my other cats. They at least had the decency to eat the mice they caught.
That's funny. A cat showing off his power, just a little "see what I can do?" Glad he had enough sense to put it in the bowl, that would have been quite a treat to find it somewhere else! Yikes.
I'm just thinking, what a nice thing to wake up to. I've heard that sometimes pets bring in their kill as a gift to their owner. So maybe it's an early Christmas present? I too was glad for you that Casey at least put it in his bowl and not somewhere more special.
My cat loved showing us the dead birds she caught, but she always had to decency to leave them at the door and make us come over to look at them.
Sadly, Jen, there was no funeral for the mouse. Rich coldly dumped his body in the trash. Stupid boys.
I am always up at 6:30. That's sleeping-in for me since I usually get up for work at 5:30 (at the latest).
The incident on the whole was fairly amusing, I suppose. And yes, I am grateful that the mouse ended up in the food bowl. It's vomit that I usually find in the most inconvenient places. Ahh, the joys of having a cat..
And Amira, the birds always attack our cats. It's a game to them. When I was the proud moma of the fattest cat on the planet (Bagel - 22 lbs), the birds would actually land on his head after mocking his meow. Um. They were, in fact, mocking birds. I had to rescue poor Bagel from the birds many times over.
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