Yes, I was sound asleep, when I heard the commotion. It sounded like a small furry train had crashed into the house and then set fire alarm off. I sprung into action and stormed the living room yelling WTF is going on in here. It was indeed the cats; fortunately they had not set the house on fire. The chirping was in fact, a bird that Tiny had captured in the back yard and brought in to show Lil. Lil was please that Tiny would share such a fine toy with him. Lil does not have a key to the cat door so he doesn’t get out much. I stunned the cats just long enough for the bird to make a dash for the kitchen. The cats were in hot pursuit. I decided that if I was going to free the bird from his evil captures, I should put on some pants. After returning from the bedroom I found that Biggie, had taken charge of the situation. It seems that Tiny and Lil had misplaced the bird and now deferred to the older and wiser cat to assist them in the investigation. All three cats now leaped up and down the counters and cabinets sniffing and poking into any space a bird might hide. The extensive search reveled no sign of the bird. The cats soon became bored and went to sleep.
Now, I know how to find a deceased bird in the house. From experience when you come home from a hard day at work and find the house full of feathers. The best way to locate the late bird is to walk around in your bare feet and you will certainly step on it in a matter of minutes. But I have little experience in finding a live bird. I once found an injured, but not dead yet, bird. After getting the cats away, I scooped him up with a towel and walked him to the front porch. I envisioned in my mind tossing the bird upward to the heavens and seeing him fly off, chirping to me, thank you for setting me free. Imagine my disappointment when he fell like rock out the sky. The little heap of blood and feathers landed with a splat at the feet of a bewildered elderly couple that just happened to be walking by. I muttered, “The cat did that”. I am not sure they believed me.
As I am typing, I have heard some sporadic fluttering from the kitchen, but it seems I will have my work cut out for me. He is hiding in the wine rack. Well, I have a choice, the easy way or the hard way. I could clime up the stepstool and flush him out and try and direct him toward the window or I can get the shop vac. I quietly shut the doors, gather up Biggie, Lil and Tiny and lock them in the bedroom. With towel in one hand I creep up the stepstool and carefully remove bottles of wine. In a flash the bird zips through the air toward the open window. He lands on the burglar bars for a moment and looks back at me but does not chirp, and then he flies away. As I approach the window to close it, I see a spider on the windowsill and squish it with my towel. The cycle of life continues.
an old german shepherd we had way back in the day did something close to this. he caught a mouse in the garage and brought it in. of COURSE we had a house full of guests. my dad was sitting in the front room, watching him play with the mouse…and of course, he finally got it in his paws and was about to cew its head off when mom saw it.
she screamed.
then the mouse hopped out because she scared the dog.
I didn’t mean that I was rating your literary efforts, by the way. I was merely commenting that any story that ends with a spider getting murdered is a good one. Just wanted to clear that up.
When we lived in Chattanooga in the 80’s, we had a cat named Sam.
One day, Sam caught a squirrel. We were cleaning out our Deep Freeze, & had the top sitting open. He jumped up, & dropped the squirrel into the freezer! I guess he wanted to save it for later…
When our oldest cat was but a mere kitten, he caught a bird. Now, this was when my husband was living in a crappy bachelor pad. The cat didn’t go outside and catch the bird. It was already in the house. He was proud as could be, and very upset when we took it away from him.
Once, when I was a kid, I heard a vague flutterflutterflutter in my room. No cats involved, and no sign of any bird. Only later, when I got intrigued enough to search, did I figure out why it was so faint. The bird was inside the blocked-off fireplace, evidently having found its way down the eight-inch chimney pipe. I had to unscrew a ventilation grille to let it out.
Crash, boom, bam, chirp, chirp, chirp! in our house means that one of the cats (and by one of the cats I mean it’s always Maria, aka psychokitty) has gone after the bird cage again. At best, the geeklings (my kids) have a mess on the floor to clean up, once they pick up the bird cage. At worst, we now have two parakeets flying freely around the house and now I have to get involved.
By the way, a fishing net works pretty good for snaring parakeets. You just have to be VERY careful untangling the bird from the net so that you (1) don’t hurt the bird and (2) don’t get pecked to death by the aforementioned angry bird. One of our parakeets is always very cooperative. The other one bites everyone in the house except for me.
Crash, fweep, fweep, fweep! means that Maria is on top of the guinea pig cage. Again.
Poor birdie, bat312. I thought the part about Lil not having a key to the door was cute.
Or it means that the guinea pig that our Dad discovered living in his yard, that he befriended and brought in to live in a warm cage as colder weather came around, had just met its fate at the jaws of our 80-pound Airedale mix. Dad liked that critter. Not so much the dog, I suspect.
I thought this thread was going to be about birdies that fly into windows, given that there have been maybe a dozen or more that have done just that at Casa Tikki Nuevo (Nuevo Casa (de la) Tikki, maybe?) in the year that I’ve been here. Fortunately, since my enclosed patio is small, they can’t get up much speed before they hit one of my big picture windows and, though stunned, they’ve always been able to beat a hasty retreat. So far.
Fie on you, ye spider crushers! Spiders are good, peaceful critters just seeking to rid your home of more the pesky ones. I, for one, welcome my spidy overlords! In my home, they may lord it over any fly, gnat, carpet beetle, etc, that they wish, even as they suck the little offenders’ guts out!
My mother, however, owns several. One day she went to work and left a window open so the cats could go in and out. She came home for lunch to find that one of her cats had liberated a live and apparently uninjured blue jay inside the house. She threw a jacket over it and put it back out the window. Then she went back to work.
She came home in the afternoon to find a new surprise. The cats had turned loose a live and healthy chipmunk in the house. The chippy was much more difficult to catch, as it repeatedly sought refuge under the furniture. Mom finally gave up but later my brother came over, caught it, and sent it back to the great outdoors.