All Creatures Great and Small

We have a cat. His name is Little Man, and he is a great but useless cat. He catches mice. Then he brings them to us. Sometimes he tosses them in the air and bats their little bodies around until the mouse falls under a piece of furniture where it remains until the stench brings us running to find it there. Or maybe even the mouse is still alive, and Little Man stalks it around the house until <ding!> it's nap-time! There goes the little mouse to a dark corner to hide while LM walks away. Normally, the girls and I would spot the mouse; we would catch it, and release it to the garden. But the mice have gotten out of control, and though running in terror along the baseboards is cute and pitiable, pooping behind my washing machine is not, and mouse poison had to be purchased. Check out this box. How do these mouse poison manufacturers expect to make any money? Why would I be willing to kill this adorable mouse on the front? If they really want me to buy it, they'd show the nasty nests these rodents build in your house along with the long list of inedible things that they have chewed through just to kill time (this list might include 3 schoolbags, a shin-pad (ate the rubber foam off of it), and a chenille rug). So we baited the house with cat-safe poison (in case Little Man ever broke with tradition and actually ate a mouse for once).

Before long I was sitting in the living room when I saw a little scamp dash out from behind the TV cabinet. Much hilarity ensued as we three female-folk put on our brave hunter-faces and then screamed every time the mouse made a sudden move. It was finally caught and I picked it up and tossed it out the back door. The next night my friend Cathy and her daughters were over, and I related this story, and she mocked me for being too soft to kill the mouse. Not 10 minutes passed before we all went into the kitchen and found that Little Man had brought in a live, unhurt tiny mouse that stood frozen in shock in the middle of the kitchen floor. We all hovered and remarked on how cute the little guy was and then I looked up and asked Cathy for her shoe.

Look of shock: "Why?!"

Me, very calmly, "I'm going to bash his little head in."

She went on to plead for the mouse's safe recovery, and as I had always intended, I set him on his way outside. There is no shame in kindness.

In addition to Little Man's great skill and gracious gifts (the mouse was still alive and unhurt because he gave it to me to play with), he also prowls the neighborhood with his buddy Halo and makes snarky comments at the other cats. Occasionally other cats come around, even a few have snuck in the cat door and eaten LM's food. There is one cat, a big brown tabby that I've often found sitting outside, that antagonizes LM to no end. Often I know the tabby is around because I can hear Little Man at the door hissing. One afternoon I walked into the kitchen to find LM sitting in the window making a horrible fuss about something outside. I looked, and sure enough, it was the tabby. The two cats were 15 feet apart and separated only by the window, so I opened the screenless window. Little Man turned and gave me a look that said, "What the freak are you doing, crazy woman!?! That cat could eat me whole!" My cowardly little kitty back up and allowed me to scare the tabby away.

So yesterday morning came dark and early as it does, and I noted to myself that Little Man had come and gone many times in the night. I know every time he returns because the moment he gets back on the bed, he plops down onto me -- the only place he'll sleep on the whole bed. So the girls and I all met in our jammies out on the landing, and I asked, "How did everyone sleep last night?" Livia groaned, but Lena answered promptly, "Terribly! I had to listen to that cat meowing all night, and then I had to listen to Little Man outside my door hissing!" I took that to mean that Lena had had a trippy night of dreams, but as if on cue, LM appeared there on the landing hissing at something downstairs, and down below I could hear a cat meowing. I went down to find the big brown tabby sitting in my dining room. When he saw me, he dashed through the kitchen and out the cat door. It was most perplexing. I scolded my cowardly cat that wouldn't even defend his own home, but would instead just hiss and then run back to his mommy. But as the day progressed, the tabby appeared a few more times in the laundry room to eat, each time dashing out when he saw me. Finally at 5:00 when I came downstairs to go pick up the girls, I could hear the incessant meowing again. I snuck down, closed the kitchen door to hinder escape, and followed the sound into the living room. There was that tabby sitting on my couch like he owned the place, meowing for no good reason. He dashed into the hall, and when he realized he was trapped, he did let me pet him, so I found he had a good healthy coat and no obvious injuries that might cause him to meow without end. I left him locked in the hall and picked up the girls. This was a terrible mistake. No, the cat didn't tear up anything or crap or spray. The mistake was letting the girls meet the cat. They spent about 15 minutes petting the cat before I let him out, by which time they had named him (Meowy) and started collecting little outfits for him to wear to tea. I tried to explain to the girls that there are many reasons why we couldn't keep the cat including, 1. the cat meows all the time, 2. the cat is our cat's arch-enemy, 3. I'm only paying for one cat to go back to America, 4. the cat just won't be quiet, 5. he probably belongs to someone else, 6. as we have intentionally kept LM small in a bonsai fashion so he will later fit in the overhead compartment, this cat is too big and would die in the cargo hold, and 7. Yo, Tabby! Shut-up already!

When LM came in that evening for the night, I shut the cat door. About every 45 minutes, I would hear a horrible ruckus as Meowy would beat against the locked door trying to get in to eat. This continued all night. This morning when I opened the front door to see the kids off, there under the shrubs was the poor tabby, locked out of his new home. Then Little Man redeemed himself and ran the cat off. I haven't seen the tabby since.