A Midnight Duel Held Among Our Shoe Rack.

Our cat earns her keep.

Her heavy tread woke me up. As a cat owner one knows whether she is merely dashing for joy, need of toilet or dashing after an intruder. The latter penetrated my foggy brain and had me quickly hotfoot out of bed in case she decided to jump up to boast with her trophy and also to lure her out to the lounge so Bob could sleep.

Meek and docile she 'slinked' in front of me to the lounge as I high stepped through the dark of our house. Never knowing what was underfoot I closed the bedroom door and was just about to close the lounge door when she growled at me and dared me to take whatever was dangling from her mouth. Eek, my little child was wild and dangerous.

As she refused to even budge from our vestibule I left her in it and made myself comfortable on the couch. Sleep was out of the question as I had to stay alert just in case she decided to jump up to do a feline show and tell...as we do feed her well, she seemed to use her bounty as a toy as far as I could gather. The rest of the night I heard the sound of shoes falling off the rack, her running over my shoe-spoon and just a lot of noise as she dashed hither and tither in her duel.

When it got time to get up, I kept an ear out for Bob so that I could warn him about the battlefield outside the bedroom. Nothing like walking half asleep over lingering mouse corpses. Eventually even he couldn't ignore her murderous display and got up. Naturally, I got him up to speed from the safety of my sofa and cautioned him to turn on the light before taking a step further.

Oh yes, he quickly was confronted with the reality of life with cats...a mouse corpse outside the bedroom door with the bounty hunter sitting daringly next to it. Bob, before attending to it, stepped into the bathroom to gather his wits. ( I wasn't going to dispose of it! ) Suddenly, he started laughing.

Our precious cat had followed him to the closed bathroom door and from the outside had flung the little corpse through the bottom gap of the door with such accuracy, that the corpus delicti landed next to Bob's feet.

Before he had told me the gist of it, he had taken said object and gone to toss it out the window with Mausi watching his every move. Even though he was feeling a bit overwhelmed so early in the morning he was pleased at how our cat had gifted him her most precious catch of the night. Yes, for cats there is nothing that denotes love more than to offer a little mouse. Naturally she got praised and was given a cat's treat...

Biggi