Another Adventure

Like everyone else at our address, the cat has a larger than life personality.  Really, he rules the roost.  He is persistent and usually gets what he wants in the end.  He’s definitely a strong-willed character and his antics fit right in with everyone else.  To his credit, he is very patient with wild and crazy kidlets.  He lets them drag him around.  He’s never run away and hidden under the bed. Ever.  He sleeps in their beds and seeks them out to cuddle when they are reading a book.  Only when severely irritated does he nip away at them.  He brings delight to all, especially Mr. Trouble on Feet who has a glorious time following him around signing “cat” and saying “Ow!  Ow!  Ow! ” which doesn’t mean ouch, it’s really his own special version of “meow.”

Like everyone else in the house, from time to time the cat needs to have a little adventure, and it usually comes at my expense.  For example, last year a kidlet inadvertently locked the cat in the sauna and he had a very, very stinky accident in there before I heard his distressed cries.  Sometimes he gets stuck in the garage and things get almost as smelly (there is nothing quite like the smell of bodily cat functions in a sauna . . . it took me a long time to get rid of that).  And then there was the time he chased a chipmunk inside, but luckily it got caught in a glue trap leftover from our mice problem before we had a cat.

Last week, a kidlet left the sliding door open, and while we were out playing in the yard, the cat dragged in a half dead bird.  (He’s quite the hunting expert, which has been a good thing on many occasions, like the time we had a shrew in the basement,  so I continue to love him for it).  Usually the half dead presents are left for me on the most used sidewalk just outside the door, but since the door was open, of course it would make sense to bring the prey inside.  Apparently when he lessened his jaws of death, the bird got loose in the dining room and there was obviously a tussle.  Oh the feathers!  I missed all of this, but there was great evidence of a struggle, and when the bird actually succumbed,  the corpse was left smack in the middle of the kitchen floor.

Of course, because this is my life, all of this excitement was discovered just minutes before I needed to load everyone up in the car and drive down to the school to pick up YaYa from running club.  I handed Mr. Trouble on Two Feet a piece of cheese and stuck him up in the high chair away from the destruction while The Banana and Mr. Sneaky Pants and I tackled the dead animal and the massive quantities of feathers, which were not effectively swept up.  I’m very grateful for a good vacuum cleaner.  Chaos, I tell you.  And the whole time, Brutus the cat was just primly sitting on the activity table in the cabin room watching us all with a look of pride and arrogance.  He knows whose in charge, oh yes.  He knows how to spur people to action and liven things up, oh yes.

It’s a good thing he’s loved like a fifth child, even if he knows it.