So, yesterday morning, I awoke before 6 am. Not to get up and get going or anything – ha ha! silly readers! To think hat I would get up and get going before 6 am! – but to pee, because I drink a lot of water in the course of the day and therefore am a peeing fool. As I rounded the end of the bed on my way to the bathroom, I looked down and saw a dark shape.
“Oh, that fucking bastard Fancypants!” I growled to myself. “It’s not bad enough that he has to poo on the floor outside the laundry room (where the litter box is kept), but to poo in my room! At the end of my very own bed! I’m going to kick his fancy little bastard ass from one end of the house to the other!”, and then I stopped and peered closer at the small dark shape.
“What,” I wondered aloud. “Has he been EATING?” For while it was a relatively small dark shape, it was far larger than an average cat poo. And I clean out the litter box every day, so I know whereof I speak when it comes to cat poo. Unfortunately.
Not wearing either my glasses or my contacts, and so fairly blind – and the room still being pretty dark – I held my breath so as not to inhale any of the assumed poo stink, and leaned down to get a closer look at the dark shape.
It was a bird. A dead bird. A dead bird laying on the floor at the end of my bed. You can imagine how pleased I was. I am NOT picking that up, I thought definitely.
“Freeeeeeeeeeeed!” I yelled down the stairs, certain it was late enough for him to be awake and either on his computer or snoozing on the couch. When he came upstairs at my bidding (“What?” he said. “Did Fancypants shit on the floor?” “Oh, better than that,” I replied. “Just come see.”), he was surprised. Miz Poo and Tubby were the only cats in the room, and they were fascinated not only by the dead bird, but also by the large spray of feathers across the bedroom floor.
It appeared rather obvious that not only had someone caught a bird, but the bird had been at least half alive when brought into MY FUCKING BEDROOM, and had tried to run for it’s poor little life before being killed and laid on the floor at the end of my bed as an expression of deep and abiding love.
While Fred picked up the bird and took it downstairs – after pointing out to me that it was a robin – I got out the vacuum cleaner and vacuumed up the trail of feathers. After sticking the vacuum cleaner in the hallway, I got back into bed and Miz Poo settled down beside me, wanting belly rubs and to purr wildly at me after all the excitement.
I dozed off again, and at some point, Fred came back upstairs to take a bath. He was cold from running around in his underwear in an air-conditioned house and was taking a bath to warm up. And because he’s a froufy girly-man.
Sometime after 7, he stepped out of the tub, dried off, and headed for the stairs.
“Bessie,” he called, stopping before he went downstairs. “Come here.” I groaned, rolled over, grabbed my glasses, and put my nightgown on.
At the landing at the top of the stairs lay another dead robin, with another violent spray of feathers. Apparently while Fred bathed and I snoozed, Fancypants (let’s be honest – Fancypants is one aggressive bastard, and none of the other cats has the nerve to actually go after a bird, so it had to be him) captured another robin, carried it inside, killed it, and left it for Fred and I to find.
So once again Fred disposed of the bird and I vacuumed up the feathers.
“I think Fancypants is sending me a message,” I said.
“What?” Fred laughed. “That you’re next?”
“Well,” I pointed out. “They ARE dead ROBINS.”
If I disappear, I think you’ll know who to blame.
Exhausted, after a hard day of murdering small animals.]]>
June 10, 2002