MUSE > CAT

Ziggy, one of the resident cats here at Waterhouse, put on a little show for me late last night. I was sitting in the living room when I heard two loud squeaks.

Ziggy had been down in the basement as I was doing some laundry, and seemed reluctant to come back upstairs, so I left him down there with the door open. Anyway, I hear these two loud squeaks, and I have an immediate idea what's just happened. I start down the hallway toward the kitchen, and I see Zig literally prancing down the hallway, coming toward me with a mouse in his mouth. I go, "Hey, Zig" (because that's how one addresses him), and he goes, loudly, "meow." The volume level was notable because he's not a terribly loud meower, at least not compared to other cats I've known in the past. I say, "Heyyy, look what you got!" Ziggy: "Meow!" The meows are also notable because, as I mentioned, he's got a mouse in his mouth. This is one damn proud cat.

Anyway, Zig makes a bee-line for the apartment. I didn't think Jenn would appreciate getting woken up by Ziggy + mouse, no matter his good intentions. So I quickly shut the door in his face, which earned me another "meow," as if to say, "But... but, I want to show the girl in there the mouse I got!" After failing to coax him back to the basement (where I'm pretty sure he found the mouse in the first place), hoping he'd go back down there to dispose of it however he saw fit, he decided - as I did - that the kitchen was an acceptable middle ground. So off we went to the kitchen.

I wasn't sure if the mouse, at this point, was dead, though I kind of suspected it was because it wasn't doing any kind of resisting. This hunch was confirmed by the unceremonious plop Mouse made when Ziggy dropped it on the kitchen floor. Zig proceeded to replay the plop for a me a few more times by scooping Mouse up into the air and letting it fall. (This exercise also helped Ziggy momentarily reanimate Mouse, which gave Ziggy much mirth.)

I sat down on the floor at one point, because that seemed like the supportive thing to do... I mean, that's what you're supposed to do with cats, right, even if you find their little present detestable. Also, I heard that kids like it when you're on the ground, because you're more accessible, and I often equate pets' mentalities with that of childrens' (which is probably why children dislike me... that and the fact that I am something out of a demented Richard Scarry book). So I get down on the ground. Ziggy took this to mean that I wanted to play with Mouse. It was a kind gesture, but the Ziggy-level pictures I wanted to get weren't worth a faceful of dead rodent.

Mouse kept Ziggy (and Ziggy kept me) entertained far longer than is probably healthy, but it was fun for all (except Mouse, who was beyond caring about much of anything). I was amused by how much fun Ziggy was having reanimating Mouse. It seemed like every time Zig was about to wrap it up, he'd look around the kitchen for a moment, look back down on the ground, see Mouse, realize Mouse was there and start the batting / scooping / plopping all over again.

Eventually, though, Ziggy did tire of Mouse. So, after one more round of Bat-Scoop-Plop, Zig sniffed at Mouse and licked Mouse. Then, to put a very definite end to the whole affair, Zig bit down on Mouse's spine with a surprisingly loud Crunch.

Ziggy: CRUNCH!

And with that, Zig went into our apartment, I put Mouse outside, and that was that.

Great story, huh?