Betrayed By A Cat, The Great Hunter Emerges

For the past week, I have been playing the role of Ramar of the Jungle. The Great Hunter. He who captures fierce, predatory animals. He who stalks at night. He who always catches his prey in the darkness. Well, sort of anyway. Kind of. It's really not that dramatic or courageous. Or fun. Not at all. Actually, I confess, it's about the mice. And catching them. In the house.And it's not my job. No. It's supposed to be Romietta the Cat's job.

Mice:

A mouse (plural: mice) is a small mammal belonging to the order of rodents, characteristically having a pointed snout, small rounded ears, and a long naked or almost hairless tail. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (Mus musculus). It is also a popular pet. In some places, certain kinds of field mice are also common. This rodent is eaten by large birds such as hawks and eagles. They are known to invade homes for food and occasionally shelter.
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Cats, wild dogs, foxes, birds of prey, snakes and even certain kinds of arthropods have been known to prey heavily upon mice. Nevertheless, because of its remarkable adaptability to almost any environment, the mouse is one of the most successful mammalian genera living on Earth today.

Yeah, successful. That means: you can hunt them 24/7 and there always appear to be more. And the more you hunt, the more you find, so the more you have to hunt. If you stopped hunting, stasis would return and they would successfully hide from you, and you could make believe that they weren't really there any more. That they had left. Well, at least so long as you managed to overlook the occasional small, black, hardly noticeable turd.

This hunting began when Romietta the cat decided to start a catch and release program in the house. She'd catch small wild, furry things in the fields and bring them home. Then if she didn't eat them, or if they escaped her clutches while she toyed with them, and it was hard for her to recapture them, she would lose interest. And they would remain in the house. Until she caught them again. Or until they left on their own. Or, worst of all, they would just stay. I've told this story before about how Romietta has been building a food pantry in the walls of my dwelling with her catch and release program. And how this is a betrayal. She is a cat and cats are supposed to keep mice from invading the house. Obviously, she does not agree with this job description.

Last weekend, I was standing in the kitchen, and I noticed that I had an uninvited guest on the counter. A very fat, gray mouse. Evidently s/he sensed I was there, and decided immediately to scurry away, running across the counter, over the stove, and into the vent in the stove. I was outraged. I thought seriously about turning on the oven and baking him/her into oblivion. But it was 90 degrees out, I have no air conditioning, and turning on the over was a very bad idea. My outrage, because my persona includes an action figure like Ramar of the Jungle, led directly to the hardware store, where I purchased the last remaining Havahart mouse trap. The last one in stock. Did that mean that the mice around here were on some kind of rampage?

That's when my hunt began in earnest. The short: this morning I removed the sixth mouse from this house in six days. I took him/her across the field and released him/her. Yesterday's mouse was smaller, browner, more disheveled, and still eating the organic, crunchy peanut butter in the trap as I carried it out of the house and into the field. Today's mouse was gray and round and quite content to sit in the trap and ogle me. Was s/he saying, "Nice job, Ramar, but I'll be back. You can catch me again tomorrow, when I have returned?"

That's a problem. These mice don't have voter id. They don't wear name tags. They dont' show their papers. I have no idea whether I have caught and removed the same one more than once. Mouse number 1 looked to me a lot like mouse numbers 2 and 6. Mouse 3 and 4 looked a lot alike. I prefer to think I have caught 6 different mice, though that thought is extremely disquieting because how can there have been 6 or more mice in my house? I prefer not to think that I am playing a very involved game with two or three mice that has led to 6 captures.

Early this morning before I came to the kitchen, I was filled with hope. I hoped that the trap wouldn't have a mouse in it. That I had caught all 5 mice, and that the siege was now over. Then I saw that the trap had closed, and that Mouse No. 6 was sitting in it. How very disappointing. The siege is not over. It is probably far from over. Who knows when, if ever it will end?

One other thing: this morning when I let Romietta the cat in after a night she had spent hunting in the fields and not in the kitchen, I invited her over to see what was in the trap. She could not have been less interested. I showed her, "Look, kitty, look, Romi here's a nice, juicy, gray, round mouse. Would you like it? I can give it to you if you want it." She turned her back and walked away. She went upstairs to take a nap. This is what betrayal looked like this morning.

I'm committed to completing this hunt. Really I am. And I'm going to try to talk with Romietta again. Maybe we should go to counseling together. Obviously, our relationship isn't working the way I'd like it to.

Note: No animals were hurt in the making of this essay.

The Feline Fifth Column

There is a lot of shredded paper in the bottom of the closet. I don’t know exactly how that happened. A roll of paper towels is now confetti. And I hear small feet scrambling inside the walls and running across the ceilings. At first I thought it was a flying squirrel. Or a regular squirrel. Or maybe a rat? But, no, it isn’t quite that simple.

Romie the cat, my cat, the cat who lives here, is feral. She came here as a tiny kitten rescued from a nearby barn. She is a small, lovely, affectionate cat. I love her deeply. But, alas, she is no vegan. And she is no tree hugger. She is and always has been a fierce and persistent hunter. And a killer of rabbits. Mice. Voles. Birds. Squirrels. Moles. She has terrorized local fauna, large and small, for more than a decade despite her being so petite. She is such a very skilled hunter who sometimes turns her nose up at her dinner. Why? Because she is full. Having eaten her prey, she is no longer hungry. At all. And she makes no secret of the fact that she prefers live kill to organic cat food.

Which brings me to today. She came to the door with a large, completely alive, brown mouse and a clump of weeds hanging from her mouth. No surprise. She wanted to come in. I do not let her in when she is carrying her prey. Ever. She was, of course, calling out, as she always does, so that her family can come and eat what she has brought them, so they too can eat fresh meat. In this case, her family is now only Maya the Dog. “Come,” she screams, “Come quick," she meows, "There is live food for you, my sweetie.” I do not let her in. She walks off with her prey.

As I am watching her slink beneath the porch with the mouse secure in her mandibles, I remember that it was only yesterday that I saw her run through the kitchen— the back door was open-- with a nice, round grey mouse clenched in the jaws. I assumed that she ate it. I assumed that the dog cleaned up any remains. I assumed that. And then it struck me. The shredded paper. The small feet scrambling. No. Romie the cat is not devouring all of the prey she brings home. That would be nice, and clean, and hygienic, and thorough, but that’s not her plan. No. She has another idea. She is constructing a zoo. In my house. An edible zoo. A pantry if you will. A rodent butcher shop for felines.

Here’s what she does. She catches her prey, but she doesn’t eat it. She calls to her family just to divert my attention. She sneaks the live animals into the house despite my refusal to open the door for her. And then, and this is the diabolical part, the part she tries to hide from me, she lets the animals go free. That’s right. She frees them in the house. She frees them and lets them in their vast shock and panic find hiding places in my house. Why? Because she plans ahead. Now it’s Spring. But the memory of Winter is fresh. She lets the animals go in the house so she can eat them in winter. So she can eat them when the hunt is too challenging, too difficult, when it’s too cold, when there’s ice. And snow. And winds like a razor. When no animal, including the hunter, wants to be outside.

This is extremely alarming. As I am typing this, I imagine that Romie is building vast cities of mice in the walls. A huge suburb of moles may be hiding in the basement. Vole families are probably building fluffy nests in the narrow spaces between the floor boards and the ceilings. Flying squirrels are hiding in warm, dry insulation the attic.

When I think about the shredded paper in the bottom of the closet and the sound of scrambling feet, I am filled with dread. I may think this is my house. But that is plainly ridiculous. It is entirely an illusion. The cat is taking it over. Who knows what it will be like here in a few months?