Vermin - Part 1
Mighty Cat was the first cat I ever owned. So when I saw him proudly
marching through the back yard with a mouse clenched between his teeth,
I wasn’t exactly sure of the protocol.
I knew that cats ate mice. But I also knew that mice carried disease. And
I was damned sure that I didn’t want Mighty Cat carrying around a
mouthful of hantavirus. So I walked up to him and, using my best
pet-owner voice, told him to drop the mouse.
Mighty Cat was so shocked that I would suggest such a thing that his mouth
fell open in disbelief. The mouse fell from his lips and hit the ground
running.
Mighty Cat stared up at me and silently asked, “Well, what now, genius?
Now you have a mouse running around your yard, and I’m not going to
catch him for you again.”
I didn’t want to look bad in front of the cat so I shot my foot out and
stomped
the mouse. I stomped it dead. It didn’t take much stomping. One stomp
really. I was pretty impressed with myself; much more impressed than
Mighty Cat was.
I then scooped up the former mouse on a piece of wood and carried it
out front to the trash cans, strutting like the mighty, rodent-slaying
Alpha Male that I was.
But my strut faltered. I noticed that my neighbor’s girls were sitting on
the lawn. They had an empty cage. One looked up at me and asked,
“Have you seen our pet mouse?”
Nope. Nothing to see here. I’m just throwing away this old scrap of
wood.
Yep. I’m going to Hell now. No doubt about it.