I recently replaced my old shower curtain with one that's mostly clear. Kylie, Smudge, and Biscuit Boy all like to be in the bathroom when I'm showering. One day last week I was in the shower. Kylie, Smudge and Biscuit Boy are laying on my dirty clothes and having a fine game of "let's see how many things we can pull out of the bathroom shelves". Suddenly they all stop terorrizing the clean towels and run in bedroom. I hear them running around in the bedroom. In a few moments they come back in the bathroom.

Biscuit Boy jumps up to investigate the dripping in the bathroom sink. Kylie flops down on my clothes. Smudge brought a cat toy back in with him and is leaping about. flinging it up in the air. I've worn glasses since I was four, am basically blind without them, but it looks like he has one of the little fur mice that are his favorite. I'm about ready to get out of the shower when it occurs to me that none of the toy mice are gray and whatever Smudge is flinging around is most definitely gray.

I wrap a towel around myself, get out of the shower, just catching a flash of gray mouse fur and long skinny tail as Smudge snatches it out of the air again. "Whatcha got?" I ask Smudge, who immediately hids it by laying down on the floor on top of it. I fumble around for my glasses. Smudge takes the opportunity to snatch up his prize and run into the bedroom with it.

None of my fur kids eat mice. They just play with them to death. The problem is that when they're done they leave them wherever they happen to be and sometimes i don't find them till they begin to smell. So I take off after Smudge, clutching the towel around myself and dripping water all over. Smudge stops by the bed, his mouse in his mouth, and looks at me. I tell him what a mighty hunter he is to have caught that mouse and ask him if he would give it to Mom. He replies by standing still, mouse in mouth, and staring at me. By this time I'm starting to get cold. I grab my robe, and go off down the hall in to see if I can find a toy to swap him for the mouse. I find a purple fur mouse, take it back into the bedroom hoping to trade it for the dead mouse. Smudge thinks not and continues to stare at me with the mouse in his mouth. Finally I go the cat toy box and get out a brand new magenta fur mouse with a long tail and take that back to him. After some rather extended negotiations I dangle the new mouse in front of Smudge for long enough that he can't help but leap up to snatch it and drop the dead mouse.

I grab the dead mouse by the tail and run it outside- in the rain, in my bare feet and a bathrobe. Maybe the transparent shower curtain wasn't such a good idea.

Copyright © Raven Tompkins
February 1, 2001