A bad bad bad Mid-night hunt

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

My eyes flew open!

I sat straight up!

My heart palpitated!

I didn’t dare breathe.

Accckkkk! OMG!

CHIRP!
Then another: CHIRP!

A blasted cricket. In my bed chamber.

Bayliss the dog was looking out of the closet at me. A bit alarmed.
I heard Bear the cat hiss under his breath from the headboard. (It behooves you not to disturb his sleep)

I turned a low light on. And rung for Ivy.
We sat quietly. Listening.
There is was. A chirp, close to the window.
I took a torch(as in the British version of a flashlight, not a real fire breathing torch :thinking:). Did not see the offensive critter on the window sill. Or under the window. Behind the chest the TV was above was clear. The corner near the closet was clear. I looked in the closet. Bayliss assured me no cricket lived there.

I sat on the edge of the bed and began getting ideas. Horrible, stinky bug spray? Call a man? Ah…got it.

I have to set this up,
At my recent hospital stay, I stole a white sheet. A kinda heavy double sheet thing. (Yeah, I stole it. I coveted it for my own. I’m a thief. I’m sorry)

Well, I got it and crawled around in the corner where I figured the cricket was and spread the, about 4x4 sheet out. Smoothly, I might add.
Ivy was tapping her toe and looking at me like I was insane. As we’re the pets. Well, the Chihuahuas weren’t. They were tired from being little shits all day. I moved their bed and they never even opened an eye.

My plan was this: the cricket would hop on the white expanse of stolen sheet and I’d grab it. Then no more problem.
Not so fast.
We waited. And waited. Ivy tapped her toe more. Pets went back to sleep.
Ivy says, “No chirping, maybe Mr. Cricket left?”

Oops. CHIRP!
Aha!
I looked hopefully at the sheet. No Mr. Cricket. Dang.
Ivy yelled.
WTH? Ivy don’t yell.
She said, “I got it!”

I said are you sure? I kinda wanted proof. She gave me a dirty look and went and threw it outside. And went to her bedroom

I go back to my bed. Everyone is calming down. I laid down. Clapped the light off. And sunk into the pillow.
Ahhh! Blissful sleep :sleeping:

My eyes popped open.
I sat up straight in the bed.
My heart bumped.

CHIRP!!!

Sometimes, you just don’t ever win, in this life.

:cricket:

2

So the moral of the story is, “The cricket always wins.” Or maybe it’s “Never trust Ivy in a cricket hunt.” I suspect she takes bribes from crickets.

3

Not surprised by this.

4

Chapter 2:
Son-of-a-wrek brought the little grandwreks a thingy of crickets to fish with this afternoon.

Yeah, I’m counting those things. Better be fish to account for every missing one.

Oldest granddaughter says keeping crickets in the house is good luck.

I told her it wouldn’t be good luck for her if one came in my bedroom tonight.

5

Borrow one of those fishing crickets and put it in Ivy’s room.

6

I may just do that.

7

Ivy pulled one over on you? She’s learned a lot from the pro she is living with. :wink:

8

I swear I’m gonna fire that woman.

Some day.

9

You can’t.

10

That’s the best part for your family and for us. After all, I want to hear about her hijinks now.

11

An Ivy tale:

We went by her house the other day after dialysis for her to retrieve crochet books she needed.
I got bored and went to look for her cat ‘thats not really her cat’ on the back porch.
And guess what I found. ‘Her’ cat had a surprise for me.
This cat is the classic calico colored cat. We had taken it in after it was first discovered for shots. The vet was not sure if it was male or female. He explained calico males are rare so he was assuming it was female and would wait to spay til it was older.
Welp. We waited too long.
Ivy is now a grandma.
She’s not happy about it. At. All.

When I was in the chair yesterday she went and boxed Momma and 2 adorable grey kittens up. All by herself and took them to the vet. He kept them because they were slightly dehydrated.

I’ll never hear the end of this.

12

No you won’t but it is fabulous that she did the right thing by them. Great news.

13

Wonderful! Now you’ll have to pester Ivy for grandkit updates :slight_smile: I’m sure she’ll just love that.

14

A few years back I had a cricket in my bedroom. At the the time I only knew I could hear it every night but could not find out where it was. I’d run from room to room trying to find it to no avail. For a a week I was going nuts.

Finally one night I heard it coming from the drop ceiling in the bedroom and I shoved the tile up and the SOB dropped to the floor. I stomped that annoying thing

15

Bear ain’t doing his job. Him or the Meeses. Maybe if you fed them less, they’d actually hunt down the critters.

A Beck-like story that includes the work ethic of my cats.

A number of years ago, I’m lying in bed. Middle of the night, I hear the cat fighting with something. Big wings. Damn, that’s a big bug. Wait a minute - we’re up North, and it’s the middle of the night. Hey, Wifie - I think there’s a bat in our room!

A WHAT?!?!?!? (throws sheet over her head)

I turn on the light, and there’s a bat flying laps around our bedroom. I shut the door, because it’s going to be easier to catch it in our room than if it’s flying all over the house.

Yeah, right. It’s not like I have anything to actually catch it with handy in our bedroom. Try to get it entangled in a shirt or something. Nope. Try to catch it in a garbage can. Flies around it. At the time, our bed was on an angle in the room, so there was a big open triangle behind the headboard. One of our cats is sitting down there at this point, watching the action. The bat flies down and lands on the baseboard. Walks on the baseboard past the cat, down one wall and up the other. Gets to the other side of the bed and flies off. Cat is just sitting there, watching the bat walk. “Why the hell do I keep you here if you don’t do your job!”

Bat flies behind our floor-to-ceiling bookcase. Now’s my chance. I quickly go down to the garage and get a fishing net. Get back up to the bedroom. Bat is still behind the bookcase. OK, I need to get it to move, so I nudge the bookcase.

crunch

Oh crap.

Well, might as well put it out of it’s misery. Shoulder block into the bookcase. CRUNCH!

It’s 3 in the morning, and I’m now taking all the books out of the bookcase to find the BatCorpse, because you don’t move an 8-foot-tall bookcase when it’s full of books. Get rid of the corpse; clean the blood off of the wall. Got to get up for work in two hours, and there is 0 chance of me getting back to sleep. Oh well. Guess I’ll start my day early.

16

Most recent hospital bill from @Beckdawrek 's last stay:

"Heavy-Duty bed sheet, white (purloined): $12,500

I’m looking forward to seeing how much Medicare will allow for kyped sheets!

~VOW

17

They gotta prove it.

I know nuthin’

I been framed, I tell you what!
:blush:

18

Worse, you gotta prove you didn’t kyp it.

19

Chapter 3:
Ivy’s grand-kitties have been rehomed. The vet was good as his word and found them good homes.
Momma cat is now spayed.
She is such a sweetie.

Too many people have told me I will end up with her.
I vow that I will insist Ivy keep her. It’s the first cat I’ve seen she’s not really afraid of. She needs this experience.
Like she tells me when I fuss about what/how much I gotta eat “It’s good for you, so do it!”
I will repeat those words.

Many, many times.
:blush:

20

I thought you’d end up with kittens AND mama. I’m glad the babies found good homes. Your superpowers obviously extend well beyond your front door. Call it The Beck Effect.