Off the Mark by Mark Parisi for June 15, 2023

It’s usually the mat in the garage for us. Sometimes just the viscera.

I can already hear the scream.

You cats are about to end up on the ceiling with all your fur spiked out.

YOU’RE about to learn some new words

Look here! Wanted: good home for an affectionate cat.

Choose one: Rat or Lego.

When we lived in Oklahoma, our cat would leave its kills in front of the door from the garage to the kitchen. My mother referred to it as “blood alley”. One day I was leaving the kitchen barefoot and had to hop to avoid stepping on the back half of a rabbit.

Is the cat’s love language Receiving Gifts? or Acts of Service?

Why, breakfast is served.

What’s worse than finding a dead mouse in your shoe? Finding half of one.

How sweet. An offering.

People who have cats generally know it is best to watch where you’re going. Like little kids, cats have a habit of sitting on the next stair.

Growing up, our neighbors decided to raise chickens [we lived in town where there were only about three or four houses on a block]. It was not a positive experience. Rats. Our cat, who was a small tortoiseshell cat, was a great hunter and she managed to keep their rat population under control. She we deposit her trophies right outside the door — she couldn’t jump in the window with them because she was too small and/or they were too large. My dad learned fast to look before he stepped.

All of the kids were watching the late-night creeper feature in the dark and screamed when something furry jumped in from the window. They turned on the light and screamed again when the cat released his captured baby bunny.

Too many don’t pay attention where they’re walking…

Even worse than finding a dead critter is being wakened by a muffled meowing and a frightened squeaking. Somehow a little brown bat had gotten into my apartment, and my cat caught it. Which he brought to my bed for show and tell.

Squish.

And barefooted.

I read about a wolf-dog who, upon realizing that the woman of the household was pregnant, dug a big hole in the yard and filled it with squirrel carcasses.

Kitty, I’ve told you time and again, you deliver the love right to her feet, when she’s sitting relaxed on the couch…

I’ve had several cat overlords over the years and whenever they would catch and eat a rodent they would, without exception, leave the stomach of their victims. I guess maybe the stomachs were acidic and they knew instinctively the stomachs didn’t taste good.

Dogs can be just as affectionate. I had a job where the owner’s dog really liked me. One day she returned from “the call of nature” and dropped a decomposing ground hog’s head in my lap. True love.

Nothing says love like a dead mouse from your cat.

She should be thankful that the cats are catching mice that are in the house! Or, is there a dog/cat door?