Last night Ted decided to continue her intermittent career as a mighty hunter.

I had better start back at the beginning.

We got Ted as an approximately 6-year-old cat. At the time she came to us we lived in a terrace house in Melbourne (Australia). Terrace houses tend to be all of similar design, kitchen and bathroom at the back, a lounge room or two and then a long hallway with bedrooms coming off it. We lived in the bedroom nearest the front of the house.

One night, in the middle of winter, we were awoken by the most peculiar sound - it sounded like Ted, but amplified and muffled. The sound got closer and closer, progressing along the full length of the house, until it was in our room. Dave got up and turned on the light (I'm difficult to get out of bed in the middle of the night in winter), took a look around to see what was happening, and then burst into loud and slightly hysterical laughter.

Ted, the almighty hunter, had been hunting in our kitchen and had captured what we call a UFO squash (golden nugget squash that look like miniature UFOs). Actually, she'd only caught half of a cooked one, because that was all we'd left on the kitchen table. Silly moggy was acting just as though she'd kilt it herself and she was dragging it up the hallway to give it to us as a present. She had proudly advertised her kill (with a mouthful) all the way through the house Needless to say she was most offended when we fell about laughing.

Fast forward several years to last night.

We occasionally feed Ted raw heart to clean her teeth a bit (she won't eat raw chicken). We cut it into large chunks so that she can get her teeth around it, but still has to chew to get a mouthful. Last night she decided that she didn't want to eat her heart while we were up and instead picked up individual chunks and spread them about her bathroom (yes, she has her own bathroom) and a bit into the hallway. No big drama, the bathroom is tiled and the hallway has a wooden floor.

Ted decided that a midnight snack was in order. She had been sleeping, snug and warm, between us under the covers. I guess she decided that she would also like to consume her snack there because the first I heard of it was the same peculiar amplified and muffled yowl originating in her bathroom and proceeding down the hall towards us. By the time I got it together to open my eyes, cover Dave's closed ones (what a kind spouse I am!) and turn on the light, Ted was at the foot of the bed with a large, bloody chunk of heart in her mouth. Her tail was up and she had a wicked feline grin all over her face (what you could see behind the heart). She sees me and carefully, calculatingly, drops said bloody gobbet onto our nice clean beige carpet. Bloomin' heck! (you can substitute the real words yourself.) What an effective way of getting a reluctant Tish out of bed and padding around the house in the middle of the night. I gently retrieved her prey item and returned it to her bathroom. Ted wasn't real happy, but I didn't really care because I wasn't real happy either. As far as I'm aware Ted et the rest of the piece in the bathroom.

That, however, is not the end of the story. Fast forward again. This time it's about 4 AM, the sleepiest and darkest time of night. Once again I'm awoken by proud, yowling cat and then disgusting lip-smacking and chewing noises. I hear Dave groaning next to me. I know that groan; it means "aaargh who woke me and why don't you ***k off". I decided that Dave could deal with this one, so poked him and told him it was his turn. Dave obligingly gets up, turns on the light and announces that Ted's just finished her snack and that I'd be hearing about this in the morning.

Bastard cat. Bastard's cat's revenge. I got serious grief this morning from Dave. My crime: waking him from a sound sleep in the middle of the night to witness Ted finishing her last mouthful of heart. Ted know what she was doing and *knew* that by the time we reacted she'd be finished. Somehow she knew (when I didn't) that Dave wouldn't be woken by the sound and that I would. Aaargh.

Worst part is that she's getting the other half of the heart tonight!

Copyright © Tish Silberbauer
March 30, 2000