Chasing The Spider.

Lucky Coconut Mango was chasing the spider last night when I heard the distinct cry of a mouse. If you’ve ever been able to discern it, if you can hear that frequency, and if you aren’t wearing shoes or socks this sound is alarming. Literally alarming. So I spring out of bed to verify that what I hear is not merely a squeaking floor board. Flick the light on and peer in the general direction of the action, where Lucky seems to be hunting, and there they are. Mouse. I don’t have my glasses so it takes a while for me to register it as not simply a large piece of felt or a hallucination. But no. Two tiny black eyes looking right at me, shoeless and all. In absence of a weapon I am dependent on the cat, who looks around the corner and sees the mouse, before playfully booping it on the nose before it runs away. 

What follows is a chase of some length. Having been aroused from near slumber time distorts. Was it seconds? Minutes? Surely minutes, at least, after putting on my shoes. I am tilting over chairs and moving love seats and shining my phone light and Lucky is just useless. Maybe it’s the spider? I had no idea spider plants were a narcotic for cats. We try to keep him in nip enough that he doesn’t feel the need to devour any one of Ruth’s many spider plants. But he always comes back to it. We will look over on some early evening, only to see the cat horking down a few leaves before bed. We will chastise the cat and he will get down. He knows it’s bad for him, probably. Knows he shouldn’t do it. But he keeps chasing that spider, nevertheless. 

So I give him that handicap (in the golf sense not the differently abled) because the cat is clearly high. And I know this for certain because, for some time after we had given up the chase, Lucky would continue to  charge and attack anything that looked like anything. Scrunchy. Pool noodle chunk. Orphaned sock. Each time I would bolt upright and turn on my phone flashlight, both hoping and dreading to see Lucky with a limp mouse in his grinding jaws. That’s what you’re for, cat. To eat them. Or at least kill them. Dissuade them to any degree. Wearing them out with horseplay only makes them stronger and more willing to engage. We are working backwards when you play tag with our vermin. You don’t have to eat it, but at least capture the thing. So we can put it in Tupperware and freeze it to death. 

But no, that’s an awful way to kill a mouse. Although if I were a mouse I guess that’s how I would choose to go. Far better to go into hypoxic hypothermia than struggle in a glue trap. But I don’t impose my worldview on others, if given a chance. In this instance it is a matter of territoriality. Dominion. The mice must stay outdoors, with the ants, and the flies. Stay out there, you awful creatures. Once in NYC I knew a cat that would eat cockroaches. Just think what a million of those cats could do on a given night? Not needing cat food would be a miracle enough. Not enough people talk about keeping predators as pets. We keep them indoors and try to breed out their instincts, but also we could just be fooling ourselves. They are probably just tiny puma and weirdly inbred wolves, pooping on our carpets and biting our faces.

The next morning I was tired and worn out. The incident had rattled my already unhealthy quality of sleep and I really blamed the cat for not doing more. I even went so far as to trash talk him to some people at work. Remarking what a bad cat he was, how he always ate too much spider and chased after nothing. It was a long but rewarding day of administrative, technical, committee, and combat work. So I got home rather late, having seen Achilles killing Hector on the wrong side of the stage, but feeling confident it would tighten up by opening. 

I had only said some basic hellos and whats ups before there in the hall was Lucky, holding the limp body of a mouse in his jaws. I praised him, and he set it down. I retrieved a sandwich bag and reverse grab zip locked the creature before throwing it away. The cat remained, looking to me for comfort and affirmation, and I attempted as best I could to oblige him. I pet him with love and reassurance. Gentle, yet powerful strokes. 

“You’re a good cat, Lucky. Thanks for that.”

I didn’t tell him about trash talking him at work. Maybe I’ll apologize for that later. I don’t think he will hold it against me because he’s just a cat. But also I left this story unfinished on the computer and I kind of wonder if he saw it and felt bad. If so I’m sorry for the part I played in this minor murder. But also not sorry. It’s a war for the household. We need all the help we can get.