Those who were present at Kingman the other night when I expressed my relief that Peanut doesn't hunt small squeaky things may be amused to hear that after that remark I went home and within half an hour found Peanut in the kitchen chasing a small and confused mouse. She drove it into a corner, where it fell back on its tiny mousey butt and stared up at me with beady eyes and trembly whiskers. I'm somewhat embarrassed by this â it was vermin in the kitchen, after all â but when it waved its little front paws at me my heart sort of melted and I had to haul Peanut off and shut her in my room. Score one for the mouse, whose brilliant off-the-cuff cuteness got it saved from a drawn-out death by someone who really should have been pretty pissed off about its presence. As it was, it scampered off to points unknown while I was dragging Peanut away, and not I nor either of my roommates has seen it since. Not ideal, probably, but then when I stop to think about it I find I don't trust my cat's fearsome hunting instinct much farther than I can throw it. Instead of expertly ridding the house of the unwanted rodent, I don't doubt she would have spent some time getting it horribly maimed and then left it for me to deal with while she investigated an errant piece of fluff in the next room. I'll take a living, unseen mouse over a half-dead one I have to kill and dispose of at 2:00 in the morning.
But I'm not giving it any cookies. I don't care what the damn storybook says. And any mooses that find themselves loose in North Berkeley and feeling peckish can stay the hell out of my muffins, too.
Posted by dianna at May 31, 2007 09:40 PM