Subtitle: Why I Love My Family
"Honey, what's that?"
"I think it's a mouse."
"No Mom, it looks like a mole."
"Come on, have neither of you ever seen a gopher?"
"Oh, yeah, I see it now. Definitely a gopher."
Dad bends down and pets the cat on the head, and tells him that the gopher-mole-mouse corpse dangling by a canine is a very good thing, and that he's a very special cat.
The cat, known here simply as Tetos--as Mr. Tetos to his peers, I'm sure--had just interrupted the communal, after-dinner clean-up by lolloping in with the half-dead gophermole only to ensure it's entire death by flinging it into the air, across kitchen floor sending it smack into oak-stained cabinets, shaking the Tupperware inside.
I have to admit I did feel something when the cat waltzed in there with that fear-ridden-faced mouser, bopping him around like the toys other members of the family spoiled him with as a kitten (I'm afraid we did this to him; I was a horrible parent)--a feeling of, guilt? Sympathy for the gopher? No...was it: my-gods-is-this-how-this-is-supposed-to-work-in-a-real-home--? We unleash ruthless killing machines into a backyard of pristine beauty, into an ecosystem that has never known predators of such cunning and appetite, and allow them to historicize the moment by parading through kitchen and bathroom with often beheaded field mice and other soft fuzzy creatures, only to laugh in bemusement at the thought of trying to categorize the most recent trophy laying lifeless at the foot of the dinner table?--Yeah, I think that was more of the feeling.
Then one of the other cats ate a cricket, and the feeling passed.
And I went back to reading.
"Honey, what's that?"
"I think it's a mouse."
"No Mom, it looks like a mole."
"Come on, have neither of you ever seen a gopher?"
"Oh, yeah, I see it now. Definitely a gopher."
Dad bends down and pets the cat on the head, and tells him that the gopher-mole-mouse corpse dangling by a canine is a very good thing, and that he's a very special cat.
The cat, known here simply as Tetos--as Mr. Tetos to his peers, I'm sure--had just interrupted the communal, after-dinner clean-up by lolloping in with the half-dead gophermole only to ensure it's entire death by flinging it into the air, across kitchen floor sending it smack into oak-stained cabinets, shaking the Tupperware inside.
I have to admit I did feel something when the cat waltzed in there with that fear-ridden-faced mouser, bopping him around like the toys other members of the family spoiled him with as a kitten (I'm afraid we did this to him; I was a horrible parent)--a feeling of, guilt? Sympathy for the gopher? No...was it: my-gods-is-this-how-this-is-supposed-to-work-in-a-real-home--? We unleash ruthless killing machines into a backyard of pristine beauty, into an ecosystem that has never known predators of such cunning and appetite, and allow them to historicize the moment by parading through kitchen and bathroom with often beheaded field mice and other soft fuzzy creatures, only to laugh in bemusement at the thought of trying to categorize the most recent trophy laying lifeless at the foot of the dinner table?--Yeah, I think that was more of the feeling.
Then one of the other cats ate a cricket, and the feeling passed.
And I went back to reading.
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