40 Pounds of Housecat, One Naked Man, and One Field Mouse

I am the naked man.  Well, technically, I was the naked man early yesterday morning when a ruckus brought me from a dead sleep and sent me running through the house.

Never mind what that looked like.

The ruckus, by the time I reached the living room, had dulled to something of a muffled romping around the carpet.  I flipped on the cove light and discovered a field mouse weaving around on the living room floor with both of my cats following along like two obese and bungling shadows.

With incompetent cats such as mine, this kind of thing could go on for hours.

I scampered off to the kitchen and began opening cupboards in search of a mouse-catching-whatever.  Coffee cup?  Nope.  Next cupboard.  Plate?  Picture mouse leaping onto my arm followed by cats.  Next.  Next.  Holy hell!  Next!

Salad bowl!

I swept the salad bowl from the cupboard and whisked back into the living room.  By the time I reached my 40 pounds of housecat, they and the field mouse were more or less sitting there in a knitting circle.  “Excuse me, fellas,” I said.  I scooped the mouse into the bowl and then trotted outside to fling the mouse at the moonlit prairie.

You are now welcome to picture me naked.

 

When I entered the illuminated house again, I found my two overfed fuzzballs exactly where I last left them.  Clearly they were bewildered.  “So that’s all you have?” I asked.  “You’re just going to sit there and shed hair?”

--Mitchell Hegman