"Several years ago, in an effort to prevent the relentless local developers from mindlessly despoiling it, I bought up the acreage which spreads out from behind my eighty-five year old bungalow in the Cascade Foothills of Oregon. Having lost my figurative ass in mutual funds, and then again in the Fannie / Freddie debacle, I was ASSURED that THIS was a fool-proof investment. Then came the Big Bank engineered real estate collapse, but that’s not really what my story, today, is about. One of the biggest features of my ‘extra’ property is a seemingly inexhaustible legion of happy, scampering field mice. Now, it should here be noted, for the official record that, in all of the animal and insect kingdom, only snakes and spiders repulse me more thoroughly than do mice–and we’ve got plenty of each of THEM, too! Anyway, once a year, or so, one of these adorable little ragamuffins manages to find its way into the house, where all possible havoc is inevitably wrecked. Yet another such occurrence was had this last spring, as the peaceful and pleasantly chill evening was abruptly disturbed by the requisite scratching and squealing which heralded the arrival of our latest uninvited houseguest, the redoubtable Mickey. My first clue that anything was amiss, as I sat hunched, as always, at my grotesquely oversized IMac was the sound of my incredibly lazy five rescue cats shifting languidly on their respective cushions, apparently trying to decide, amongst themselves, whose turn it was to ‘do the cat thing’. Now Kyle, my ‘spaz cat’, had just broken his leg in a disastrous tumble from atop the kitchen cupboards, so he merely raised his remaining front paw upside down in a timeless gesture that was clearly intended to say, “What can I do?” The other four continued to demure from the honor of the kill as I began to search for the vicious intruder I now knew to be perilously near. Mickey chose this moment to come rocketing across the living room floor in my general direction, as Simon and Lily bestirred themselves enough to begin tentatively sniffing the air and Lucy and Selena actually had the audacity to roll over and go back to sleep. Imagine my horror as our new acquaintance suddenly erupted from beneath the monitor screen and straight into my waiting hands as they hung poised over the keyboard. I immediately swung into decisive action, screaming at the top of my lungs like a little girl and frantically batting poor Mickey off the table via the shortest possible route! Needless to say, the cats were not sparing in their open scorn at my mortifying gaff; eyes were rolled, paws were placed across faces and heavy sighs were heaved as the now cackling adventurer made a beeline for the spare room in which are housed the bulk of my priceless and irreplaceable Star Trek collectibles. “Oh God no, Mickey”, I moaned breathlessly, my gut clenching painfully as my worst fears were realized, “NOT the toy room!” So, my urgent concern for the toys…er, I mean, collectibles having momentarily overwhelmed my fierce aversion to General Rodentia, I sprang from the bosom of my comfy computer chair and burst down the hall and into the toy room, scant seconds behind Mickey, carefully closing the latticework door behind me to forestall a belated influx of clumsy kittehs. I snapped on the overhead light and there was Mickey scooting straight up the treasure laden shelving toward the ceiling, and leaving a trail of wanton destruction in his wake. When he arrived at the top self, having unerringly dislodged everything in his path on the way up, he turned to stare at me, blew me the most disgusting raspberry, and proceeded to topple my 9″ Next Generation dolls from their place of honor! Tasha Yar went down first, never to work in the business again! Data came next, landing squarely astride the pointed ear of a three foot tall Batman statue; fully functional, no longer! As Picard teetered over the edge, all I could think to do was to bellow, “Make it so!”, in my finest Patrick Stewart voice. Finally, recovering myself somewhat, despite the rapidly increasing pile of dusty, twisted toys accumulating at my feet, I commenced to clap my hands together loudly and shout, “No, Mickey, no! BAD rat!” This action eventually had the hoped-for result that the little guy got so nervous and agitated that when he sent the Q doll to its doom, he got a hind leg caught in the crimson robes and came crashing to the floor with it! Perhaps predictably, I missed a SECOND opportunity to lay hold of the invader and oust him, while I cowered in the furthest corner, watching him fly through the lattice to relative freedom…STRAIGHT into the darkened bedroom. Aw, shit. It was, by this time, well passed midnight and I had the early shift at the bookstore the next morning, so the time had come for extreme measures. I closed the solid door to the toy room, wisely leaving that mess for another time and hauled open the bedroom lattice. Hand carrying two of the four able-bodied cats into the bedroom I secured the space and crawled into bed, counting upon nature to take its course at some point. I don’t know how long I lay there, straining to hear any sign of Mickey, but I ultimately passed out due to the terror and exertion of it all. When I came to, the next morning, I was not long in discovering what was left of Mickey all over the kitchen floor. The first two cats had driven him from the bedroom and the other two had ‘played’ with him ’til there was just no play left in him…and THEN some! Mission accomplished at long last! Now if I can only get somebody to come over and clean up the mess on the kitchen floor for me."
Your story had me rolling on the floor. So funny. However, it sounds to me like you feed your cats too well. Maybe a little less kibble will get them into action sooner!! This reminds me of a story of my own .... We had two cats and, because I believe they should be able to go outside whenever they want, and because they disdain from talking to me and letting me know when they want to go out, we put in a cat door for their convenience (mistake number one). Anyway, one night I'm jolted from sleep by my husband who is whispering at the top of his lungs, "Did you hear that?". I wanted to shout, "No, the only thing I can hear is YOU!", but didn't. Instead, I did indeed hear something that sounded like it had big claws. We tiptoed downstairs, my intrepid husband carrying his 45, and me carrying my son's lacrosse stick, and there glaring at us was a mama racoon and here four babies. They were eating out of the cat's bowl (I'm guilty of feeding my cats too much also). The two cats where on the very top of the refrigerator, trembling in fear. The racoons had managed to open every cabinet door and pulled all the boxes of food out and ripped them open. There was a mess everywhere. Have you ever tried to coral five fat arrogant racoons before? Believe me, it wasn't easy. But we finally got them out the door. Or so we thought (mistake number 2). I guess we don't count very well, because the next day, my husband found one of the babies curled up asleep behind the radiator on the second floor. After much effort, each of us using a lacrosse stick, we were finally able to pry his little claws loose from the radiator and we threw him out the second story window, with a muttered "There you go, you little sucker". (Our second story window was at least 14 feet off the ground.) Mistake number 3 was thinking it would hurt him. He got up, dusted himself off, and flipped us off over his shoulder as he toddled off to find mama. Needless to say, the cat door, from then on, was promptly closed at 8:00 pm and the cats learned, if they didn't want to spend the night outside, they'd best be in for curfew!
Peter your story telling is great. I can see you screaming at the mouse and knocking all of your "collectibles" on the floor while the cats just looked at you as if you had finally lost it.
These stories are hilarious! It's funny how God's creatures can send us into a tizzy. I haven't laughed so hard since we first moved into our house and encountered a bat under our bed. Of course the laughing came afterward.
It's funny you mention a bat under your bed. In the continuing saga of our cats and their infamous door.... My son was about 12 at the time. One night he comes to our room and wakes us up to tell us there's something under his bed. My husband and I look at each other, and think "He's too old to still believe in the toe monster!". Like most sleepy parents, we tell him it's nothing, to go back to sleep. He goes back to his room, and we are just falling back to sleep when we hear him, not quite yelling, but very nervous, saying, "guys, there's really something under my bed!!??". My husband and I drag ourselves out of bed, go to his room and turn on the light. The poor guy is huddled up at the head of bed, hugging his knees to his chest. We start to tell him everything is OK, when we hear this strange noise .... coming from under the bed. Maybe the toe monster does exist. My husband crouches down, looks under the bed and then starts laughing. The cat had somehow caught a full size rabbit (it was bigger than he was) and was playing with it. He would let it go, it would hop (hitting the bottom of the bed) 3 or 4 times, then the cat would pounce on it (and he would hit the bottom of the bed). After about 1/2 hour, I was finally able to catch the cat, my husband caught the rabbit and we threw them both outside. Needless to say, we took our son more seriously in the future!
Did this happen before you decided to close the cat door at night? Or did your cat drag the rabbit through the cat door?
This happened before the "racoon episode". The cats had brought (dragged) in a few interesting things before (through the cat door) and we would scramble to catch the critters without hurting them (or us). The rabbit stunt was a little annoying, but it was really funny and didn't bother us too much. When the racoons came in though, that was a different story. They were so destructive and made such a mess. By that time, the "zoo" was getting a little old and not quite so funny anymore. The amazing thing was that the racoons figured out a way to open the door by themselves. They came in a couple more times before my husband figured out a way to "lock" it. Crafty little critters, those racoons!
Yes, the raccoon is a crafty creature. I head in another directions when I see a family of them crawling out of a sewer drain early in the morning. The same thing with possums.