I opened the door to my kitchen in the dark when I got home this morning. The light switch is annoyingly placed across the room, so I have to walk through the kitchen in the dim light from the outside fixture in order to see. I could just see the forms of four catnip mice on the kitchen floor. I’ve been pleased recently that they’re playing so much with the mice, throwing them all over the house.
I flipped the kitchen light on.
Three catnip mice were on the floor. And one mouse with beady red glaring dead eyes, stopped in death and probably terror.
Ew. Ew ew ew. We had just been talking at work about how mice can die of fear, and this one wasn’t mangled or eaten (weird, but thank god), just frozen on the floor.
What I hate is that foot nudge you have to do. Will it move? Sure its eyes are open, but is it playing possum? When I use the toilet paper (WILL I NEVER REMEMBER TO BUY PAPER TOWELS?) to pick it up by its tail, will it wake up and double up on itself to bite me viciously in the wrist? Of course it won’t. In rigor mortis, there’s a pretty good chance it’s permanently dead. But the fear is there.
It’s the first mouse. Hopefully the last mouse. Cats are good for lots of things, this being one of their best features. But ew.
Threw it out. Ew. Ew ew ew. Took out the trash. Then Digit, in his excitement, threw up all over the kitchen floor (not on the rug, yay!). WILL I NEVER REMEMBER TO BUY PAPER TOWELS?? Toilet-damn-paper SO doesn’t work the same way.
Ew.
But the kits were nice and warm to sleep with today. There’s that.
I haven’t spotted a mouse in years. I wonder if Scout misses that? The discovery/disposal never really bothered me…but then I usually have paper towels. Heh heh heh.
Then again, not even having paper towels makes up for having to clean up cat vomit. Ugh.
1. I didn’t know mice could just up and die of fright like that. Ew!
2. Thanks for taking us to Bolinas with you. I have a fond memory from 19 years ago of sitting on a bench overlooking the Pacific. It wasn’t far from Bolinas. Lucky YOU to have a place like that within striking distance.
3. Happy new year!
I don’t have mice, so my cat catches bugs for me instead. He can’t get the big ones, thank goodness
(like the huge caterpillars and cockroaches I sometimes get). But he tries to, which alerts me and then I can get them myself.
may you remember to buy paper towels in 2006! Happy New Year!
Don’t never say you’re over cats. They can HEAR you. Hurts their inscrutable alien little hearts. I’m sure of it. And who knows? They might try to win you back by bringing more dead presents. Just sigh and enjoy the warm snuggles.
Oh yes, and buy paper towels.
Thank God for your “paper towel” comments. Now we know what to get you for your wedding.
Just doing their job, ma’am!
Be thankful you don’t get presents on your pillow! I have one kitty who loves to keave her quarry there for me to find, talk about UGH!
Hope to see you at the knit-out and I’ll bring all the wedding flower books and stuff for ya to look at 🙂
Ooh, send one of them down here. We have a mouse in the house that is freaking the dogs out. And the vomiting from excitement would be bonus for them as they’d love to clean that up. Win-win.
Be glad your cat isn’t into eating mice… at my old house Spicy used to catch mice and eat everything but the head and guts. She’d leave those on the front porch for me as a token of her love. 🙂
ew! luckily, the mice cricket catches are small (like size of the tip of your thumb), and that brown/gray. not CUTE per se, but not white with satanic eyes. Plus, usually she just plays with them while my roommate and i dump all the trash out of a trashcan to rescue the mouse to take it outside (where i’m sure it’s promptly eaten by something).
at least you haven’t had my friend’s experience – her cat wanted to teach her how to hunt, so it brought her a mouse IN HER BED. ON HER PILLOW. A LIVE MOUSE.
😉
Aw…poor little mousie. (Sorry, I think just about everything with fur is cute.)
We’ve never had a mouse in the apartment (as far as I know), but we had one on the back porch one afternoon. The cat freaked out and watched it through the sliding glass door, looking back at me every once in a while with pleading eyes. I could just hear him begging me to let him out.
Ziplock plastic bags are what you need. Fold one over your hand, pick up mess, seal and toss.
One who has been there many, many times.
Yikes! Yesterday I came home to a house full of cat puke. Yeah, nice, I know. I’ll trade your one frozen-from-fear mouse for cat-who- ate-chicken-wings cat puke.
Ick.
I love my two cats but I am kind of feeling these are the last 2 for me – forever. Especially since there are just too many days of the triple icks going on – vomit, cat pee and poo all in the same day. And no the pee and poo weren’t in the catbox.
Dude, I HOWLED! I’ve so been there. My guys stalk their prey (bugs, bees, and the odd mouse), it’s hilarious. And pretty freakin’ amazing how their instincts kick in, considering they’re indoor cats and have never had to ‘hunt’ or defend themselves.
Ew. This is definitely one of the reasons I prefer a dog . . . (grin)
We’ve only ever had one (real) mouse caught in the house. I noticed Cleo batting around one of her furry mouse toys, but when I took a closer look the furry mouse had buck teeth. And a spinal cord hanging out the back. A mouse head!
We looked around the room to find the rest of the carnage and found the headless mouse body lying in a pool of its own blood.
Gross, yes, but I’m just as glad that it’s a dead mouse in my garbage can and not a live mouse in my walls!
Oh, how about the time I picked up what I *thought* was a toy fur/catnip mouse in the basement? Still shuddering, years later.
Oh my! I don’t think I could ever pick up a dead mouse with something as thin TP (it was at least 2 ply, yes?) Fortunately, I’ve only had to deal with a dead cockroach… no, wait… that’s not exactly better… hrm… =P Happy New Year!
Ah yes, I got a whole mouse on Christmas Day, and a head on New Year’s Day. Thanks, my furry-faced friend. Next year, you can have your own credit card, mmkay?
That’s nothing! We woke up on Christmas Day, went out to take a look at what Santa had brought and found (to our horror!) that the cat had contributed…a RAT! A huge rat, easily one third the size of our kitty. After we got over our disgust, we were pretty impressed. In the end, I’d rather have the vermin dead than alive. Oh! Clean-up is much esier to deal with if you use a dust broom and pan to scoop the body up with. It’s just far to gross to actually pick them up with your fingers!
Mooky caught a mouse on Tuesday, too! Oh, so proud was he.
I hooted at the mouse/cat-upheaval story. Despite the grossness of it, it makes me miss having kitties and all their little dramas! I also saw this URL mentioned on another website today — what serendipity. It might have come in useful in your kitchen:
http://www.grackle.net/cat/vomit.html
Who knew there was a sign for that?!
Best – Carolyn B.