Unwanted house guests....at 2am!

There are advantages to living in the country.  It's very quiet and peaceful.  We can sit outside at night and see a sky full of stars.  We can play music really loud and watch movies in surround sound so loud it rivals most THX movie theaters.  We don't worry about intruders, of the human kind anyway.  Which brings me to one disadvantage of living in the country.

We have two cats, both of whom enjoy "catting around" at night. There's Sadie, (whom I have called "Satan" since the first day we adopted her.)  She's a beautiful cat, all white with a calico tail.  This cat lives to torment me and she is quite possibly Satan in feline form.  On more than one occasion she has perfectly timed a dart in front of me as I'm walking, causing me to trip over my own feet to keep from punting her across the room.  Once, she did this and caused me to slip and blow out one of my favorite flip-flops (yes, I saw this as the perfect opportunity to sing Jimmy Buffet out loud "blew out my flip-flop, stepped on a pop-top but my poor heel had to cruise on back home, but soon it will render, there's booze in the blender, of that frozen concoction that helps me hang on...Wasted away again in Margaritaville...)

Then there is Zoey.  Marcus brought her with him when he moved in and she has become a part of our family.  And I smile to myself at how irritated Marcus gets when she chooses to sit or lay down with me instead of him.  She’s a gorgeous grey tortoise shell calico and definitely has a mind of her own.  When she wants to go outside she lets us know by climbing on tables, cabinets, counters and just starts knocking stuff off.  She knocks off books, keys, papers... this is her way of saying "let me outside or I'm going to destroy this house." Now, this is the complete opposite of Sadie, who has her unique way of letting us know when she wants back in the house.  She does this by launching and attaching herself to the screen of the window on my side of the bed (I'm telling you, this cat has a vendetta for me.) When she's latched on to the screen she starts to heave herself back & forth, knocking on the glass while occasionally screeching her claws. Which, when I'm dead asleep, not only sounds like a herd of elephants trying to get through the window but also like a screaming, dying whale at full volume.

Because the weather is getting nice and because we don't want to be up every hour of the night letting one cat out and one cat in, we keep a window open just enough for them to traipse in and out at their leisure. I'll admit it, I laughed out loud when Sadie tried to jump in the window, but the window was closed.  I figure I can since she probably laughs at me every time she trips me.  And yes, they have brought in the prize catch, like a lizard or small snake, from time to time.  They do this even when we let them in the normal way, through the back door.  I’m used to this.  I know it comes with having cats.

What I am NOT used to, however, is when the cats bring home a MOUNTAIN LION!  Two o’clock this morning and I wake up to what I swear is ROOOAARRRINGG coming from the living room, hissing that sounds like spit and fur are flying at tornado level speeds.  There’s also some banging and knocking that sounds like a construction zone, tearing down the wall.  Add to this my sweet, perfect Chihuahua, Lola, barking full force.  “Just what in the sam hell is going on?” I think to myself as I reluctantly leave the warm bed to investigate.

Here’s the scene I walk up on:  Lola is barking so hard she’s scooting herself across the wood floor.  Both of our cats are Halloween’ed up, every strand of fur standing on end, hissing and growling and roaring.  And then there’s Marcus…broom in hand, alternating between waving it high above his head, missing the ceiling fan by mere centimeters, to down on the ground, poking and sweeping the broom handle under the couch & love seat.

“What are you doing??” I ask, probably not nearly as frantic as I should be.  I can’t imagine this being a normal scene in anybody else’s house, but for some reason, I’m not in panic mode…just yet. 

To which Marcus replies “Either get in here and help or get out of the way!”  To illustrate just how unfazed I am, I stroll over to the couch and sit down at the laptop…because, apparently, I see this as the perfect time to check my email and Facebook.

“YOU ARE NOT HELPING AND YOU ARE IN THE WAY!!” Marcus hisses as he attempts to move the couch I’m currently sitting on. Then I hear it again, the mountain lion-esque roar, coming from the corner where the couch and love seat intersect.  “WHAT was that?” finally, my panic emotion has shown up to this party.  I’m pretty sure I flew the distance from where I was sitting to bedroom door, turning around just in time to see a flash of grey dart from the corner and sail towards the front of the house, in the opposite direction of the open window.  I’m certain now my panic is running full throttle because I could have sworn the animal that has invaded our house is a cross between a wooly mammoth and saber tooth tiger.  I’m sure I saw fangs 4 inches long.  Marcus, with our gang of ferocious felines and hopping/scooting/barking dog, bringing up the rear because she can't quite get traction on the hard wood floor, all take off in that direction.  The only thing I can imagine is all of them coming back, bruised, scraped, bleeding, tattered and torn. 

However, Marcus returns, holding close a small, scared out of his mind, grey tabby kitten.  “Awwww….is he ok?”  Just as I ask this, our animals round the corner, hissing and growling and barking, scaring the poor kitty so bad, he leaps from Marcus’ grasp, scratching his chest, almost drawing blood and dives right out the open window.  Both of our cats immediately dart through the window after the poor kitty, while Marcus and Lola go barreling out the back door – the cats are growling, the dog is barking and Marcus, standing in his boxers, is saying “get ‘em Lola, sic him!”  I don’t think that cat will ever, ever venture into our backyard again.  Poor guy, he was kinda cute and I’m sure, if our animals had been a tad more hospitable to our guest, we might have considered letting him become a member of the family.

After all the excitement has died down, the cats both on the back porch, standing guard and Lola snuggly back under the bed covers, shimmying into her spot between our knees, Marcus says “you’re going to blog about this, aren’t you?”

“You bet your sweet ass I am…I can’t make this stuff up!! You might want to put some peroxide on those cat scratches.”