morning coffee a la mouse

Saturday morning at my place is coffee and cigarettes for breakfast. A nice slow, quiet wake up ritual that I enjoy. A pleasure that isn’t possible from Monday to Friday. This morning I was halfway through the java when a little thing with a long tail ran across the kitchen counter and jumped onto the floor. The next thing to move was bigger and black with a much larger tail.

What did I do? 

I screamed like a girl.

The cat chased the mouse and I chased the cat. He had him in about 15 seconds. I had no idea what I was going to do next. My first thought was “he can’t eat that thing, it might have disease.” I’ve spent too much money to cure his stomach issues, and he’s on a strict diet. That damn thing will just give him more problems.

“Mouse isn’t on the menu Fluffy.”

Funny how fast your mind can compute these things when you’re running, looking at the back end of your cat. Who knows what this mouse ate last, who knows how many make-the-cat-sick-germs it has.

“There’s no more money left for the vet Fluffy, STOP!” 

He got the mouse and crawled under the kitchen table. I thought very quickly, “what the hell am I going to trap it in?”

I grabbed a small tin that I got cookies in last Christmas - good enough. Ran back to the kitchen and found Fluffy still under the table holding his prize. He had grabbed it by the back so its head and legs and tail were all wiggling, trying to get loose. I sort of felt sorry for it at this point. But not sorry enough to want to let it go.

I put the cover of the tin on the mouses tail to hold it but couldn’t convince Fluffy to give it up. He growled at me. It sounded vaguely like, “Back off Bitch, the mouse is mine.”  And so a power struggle ensued. I pulled on the back of his neck, he let go and I had the mouse, I let him go and he got the mouse again. And on and on for a minute or so. I got tired of this and somehow got the mouse, which by this time was regaining it’s will to live. He let go of the thing for a second and what happened next was I made the fastest move I think I’ve ever made. I managed to get the cover on the thing, trapping it to the floor, and then moved the cover and used it to scoop him into the can. I slammed the lid on and had to contend with dirty looks from the cat.

“Too bad cat, no mouse for you.”