GOOD MORNING!

This morning, while I hoisted my consciousness out of a hazy, NPR-influenced dream state, I became vaguely aware that my feline companion was being far more active than usual. She does have a habit, in the morning, of milling about my room, jumping over my sleeping body, and meowing loudly in my ears. Like, HELLO ENOUGH SLEEPING IT IS TIME TO FEEEEEED ME! This is annoying. Lucky for her I am not cold-hearted enough to fulfill my fantasies of picking her up and throwing her across the room at that point. Plus, she's pretty cute. I'm a sucker that way. But, seriously. Chekkit:



So, right. Back to the point. This morning, she was tearing around the house, howling, pouncing, leaping, and otherwise scrabbling in a furry flurry of activity. I pried my eyes open and looked over the edge of the matress, where the cat had come to a stop. She was eyeing me with, I swear, a glint of pride. Between her paws was a little mouse. She meowed. She pawed lightly at the mouse. She gave me pride eyes.

This isn't unusual. Or, rather, it isn't unusual for her to be meowing proudly over one of these:

A nice little faux mouse, made of fur that I'd rather not think about, with little pink felt ears and strips of leather for a tail. Usually, the cat immediately eats the tail.

So, it's not unusual for the cat to be pawing at a little wet chunk of matted fur with little felt pink ears. That rattles.

What is unusual, which I realized as I forced my eyes to focus, is to see the cat purring over the conquest of a. real. live. (formerly) mouse. Fully articulated. With little tiny paws sporting little tiny claws and fur he grew himself. Tiny, perfectly formed whiskers poking out from his little snout. A little frowny gaping mouse mouth with tiny little razor sharp teeth. A rodent tail. A for real, long, slightly reptilian RODENT TAIL.

Good FUCKING morning!

"Hey, Yo, What's up? I'm a real mouse!"

The cat was still kind of batting around the dead body and leaning down to playfully bite it.

I got out of bed and ignored the situation. Cannot. Deal. I took a shower. I put on moisturizer. I made. coffee.

Then I came back with a paper towel, encouraged and praised the cat (a dead mouse is better than a live one). And got rid of it.

But I can't get rid of the AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHGRRRAHHHCKKK thing that possesses us city girls when we get a little too much nature.

There ain't enough paper towels for that.