Around 1:30 this morning I woke up to strange sound in our bedroom.  One of the cats was running around like a lunatic and occasionally meowing.  This is a little bizarre for either of them at 1 am and I was only partially awake so I listened for a few minutes to try and figure out what the heck was going on.

Eventually I turned on the light and peered over the foot of the bed.  Schmutz was the one racing around the floor and she wasn’t after one of her toys.  Because I had already expected this from the earlier noise I stayed calm, sighed resignedly and said to Matt, who was at least somewhat awake now too, “Your damn cat found a mouse.”

We watched her for a couple minutes while caught the mouse, pranced around proudly, deliberately dropped it, chased it again, caught, pranced, dropped, repeat.  Spencer wandered in to see what the commotion was all about and would occasionally bat gently at the mouse with his paw if it came his way, but he clearly didn’t have any idea what to do with it.

Eventually it became clear that the mouse wasn’t going to be put out of it’s misery anytime soon so I decided to step in.

“Schmutz!  Get the mouse!”  And she did, but ran away with it as soon as I got off the bed.  I followed her into the dining room as she continued her game of chase-catch-prance-drop and grabbed a plastic tumbler and a large putty knife to attempt to catch the stupid thing myself.

Sometimes Schmutz and I would be working together and flanking the mouse, but I never managed to shoo it into the cup.  The 3 of us kept going around and around the dining table while Spencer watched from under a chair.  Occasionally the mouse would rear up or charge Schmutz. “I think it may have toxoplasmosis!” I shouted up to Matt.

After 10-15 minutes of this (and more random things shouted up to Matt who was staying in bed playing a game on his tablet) I finally managed to catch the damn thing.  Since it was nearly 2 in the morning, I just dumped it outside, so I’m sure it’s back in by now, but it was the middle of the night and I was all out of fucks to give.

I went back upstairs (Schmutz was still frantically searching for her new favorite toy) and Matt asked if I had given the cats a treat.

“A treat? Why?”

“Because my cat found a mouse.”

“But she didn’t kill it.”

“But she found it.”

“And brought it into our bedroom!”

Matt eventually went downstairs and gave both of them a treat.  What Spencer did to deserve it I have no idea since he was even a bigger failure.

Around 5:30 this morning Schmutz sat on my chest and yowled at me for her breakfast.

“If you had just killed the damn mouse you wouldn’t be hungry right now.” I grumbled and then Matt kicked her out the room because she was being pesty and it was still way too early.

So those are our cats in a nutshell.  Spencer thinks everything is a friend and Schmutz has currently brought us one well-dead mouse and one far-too-alive mouse.  At least this is the first sign we’ve had of rodents currently in the home so I don’t think we have an infestation on our hands.

Looking on the bright side, at least she didn’t drop it in our bed.

 

Our cats are very demanding about their food.  They’re both little furry alarm clocks that may go off as early as 5 am and start crying like they’re starving to death the second you get home from work… even if you only had a 1/2 day are home by noon.  They also know what our real alarm clocks mean so they get extra excited when those goes off in the morning.

This morning though…. silence.  Matt and I both looked at each knowing this was suspicious.  I went downstairs and found Schmutz waiting at the front door, hoping I would let her out onto the porch.  Not yowling, not scolding me, not racing to her food bowl, but waiting quietly.

HIGHLY suspicious.*

I turn into the dining room and find that the cat food bin was tipped over… which had popped the latch… which had opened the lid… which had spilled food all over the floor… which had allowed the cats to gorge themselves.  Spencer was still inhaling food off the floor.

The most disturbing thing about all of this?  They learn, like the raptors in Jurassic Park.  Our sealed food bin may never be safe again…

God help us when they figure out how to open doors.

 

UPDATE: They’ve learned how to open the latch on the food bin!  We noticed the latch was undone in the middle of the day and I know I had fully closed it in the morning.  Matt turned the bin around so the latch was against the wall and later we noticed Schmutz nosing at the hinges, searching for a weak spot apparently.  I don’t know how long we can continue to outsmart them….

UPDATE #2:  …apparently not for that long.  If the bin isn’t pushed all the way against the wall, Schmutz will squeeze her way into the gap so she can get to the latch and then get her snack on.  No wonder she’s turning into a bit of a pudge.

 

*Anyone who’s known Siamese knows it’s highly suspicious when they’re quiet about anything.  A year ago Schmutz was pretty sick and when we first took her to the vet we listed one of her (several) symptoms as “she’s being really quiet.”