Of Mice and Men

Well, people have told me, people have insisted to me, people have remonstrated with me, and now I must accept it: the neighbor's cat truly is my cat. It's not because he sleeps on my bed six nights out of the seven; it's not because I feed him or turn on the bathtub water when he wants it, nor is it even because I leave out a couple paper shopping bags for him to lie on.

I have to accept that our relationship has reached the committed stage because he has brought me a second dead mouse. The first one could have been a fluke. He could accidentally have dropped it off here en route to its true recipient. He could have been distracted by sounds from outside and lost his train of thought. But this one was hard to mistake, as he was alternating between intently playing with it and intently trying to offer me a bit of the action.

There are very few things I like to do at four in the morning. Nowhere on that very short list is wresting a still-warm little mouse carcass from a predator's paws, bundling it up, bundling me up, and heading to the dumpster bleary-eyed, nauseated, and considering reconsidering my current sleeping partner.

I've never tried straight bleach in the carpet cleaner before. I wonder how that works.