Perhaps there could be a valid argument made for my spending more time with humans... nahhh.

So I was reading someone’s random blog and they had taken one of those personal info quizzes which some people send me in emails and I almost never return (we could start a whole new tangent here about how it is kinda gut-wrenchingly difficult for me to commit myself to having a favorite anything but, nah)… Anyway one of the questions on this one was “Have you ever had a fight with your pet?” and the person said, “Gimme a break, who argues with their pet?!” or similar.

Um… well…

Hugest Preamble Ever (so far)
The latest Extraordinarily Fun ritual for the cats and me is our Mouse Under the Couch Alert and Retrieval System, aka MUCARS. This system, quite diabolical, was painstakingly devised by Sam & Lucy and very cleverly implemented gradually over the space of several months so that I would not realize that I was, in effect, being trained by them to get mice from under the couch at a moment’s notice.

Unfortunately, in order for you to appreciate the whole picture, alas, I must first wax descriptive on the House Mouse Protocols…

Standard HMP:
1. Susan leaves mice out for Sam and Lucy every morning (the little white fur-glued-together, doubtless-by-some-really-poor-culture-somewhere kind)
2. Sam and Lucy play with mice until mice finally escape under couch (in Lucy the Stickwork Girl’s case this can take up to 1-2 hours; in Slapshot Sam’s count on a cool 40 seconds) (Tremendously à propos analogy credits: Auntie Jessica)

Subset A: MUCARS Protocols
1. Sam or Lucy approaches couch, lies on side and pretends to reach beneath, then begins pulling him/herself around base of couch by his/her claws, still pretending to reach for mouse even tho gimmeabreak we all know it is unreachable
2. Susan reaches down and pushes cat away
3. Sam or Lucy returns after a hefty 2-3 minutes (or long enough for Susan to get settled again, whichever is sooner)

Steps 1-3 are repeated here as many times as necessary until…

4. Susan gets Mouse Retrieval Tool (bent clothes hanger) down from bookcase behind couch (Interesting Sidenote: the MRT emits a high-frequency noise very audible to S & L regardless of states of dormancy or location in apt. so that in the 0.73 or so seconds it takes to grab the tool and bend down towards the couch again, both cats will be sitting in the hallway in their official Mouse Toss spots and attitudes), lifts edge of couch, retrieves mice
5. Susan tosses one or more mice towards bedroom
6. Sam runs frantically after certain mice, stares critically at others without moving (Sam’s criteria for the Perfect Mouse Toss, or PMT, call for further study); Lucy alternately does backflips as mice sail over her head or intercepts the tosses, batting mice into the kitchen.

Subset B: Crucial House Mouse Physics
No matter how far into the bedroom mice are thrown, no matter which cat is playing more with which techniques, within another 10 - 20 minutes, virtually all household mice will end up under the couch again.

Result: Mouse Tosses alternated with MUCARS steps 2-10 will be repeated as many times as necessary until Sam and Lucy finally get sleepy, someone has to poop, someone hears a fun noise outside which must be investigated by checking out each and every window, it is time for bedroom-to-livingroom cat races, it’s time for a treat or cat grass in the kitchen, or - on certain evenings when Susan has dealt with just That Much Too Much conference or 1010 ickiness during the day - an Executive Decision is made for TFBB (Temporary Feline Bedroom Banishment).





(Psst – the preamble is done now.)



So!! Right around New Year’s one evening, Sam was instigating the MUCARS protocol and I ignored him for a while, then finally gave up as usual. I grabbed the MRT and lifted the couch (actually it’s a small, very light, loveseat inherited from Auntie Elizabeth last year) only to find that there were no mice there.(I mean seriously – in a 2x5’ space of hardwood, it is pretty easy to see if there are little furry white mice or not, so I was quite confident of the findings of my search.)

So I said, “Sammers there are no mice there; I don’t know what’s wrong with you.” I sat down again and he started at the couch some more. I pushed him away a few times and finally carried him into the bedroom, “You are a maniac! There are no mice there! What the heck!?” I got some other mice for him to play with in the bedroom which kept him busy for a good 3-4 minutes probably… Then he was back at it…

This went on for the better part of a half hour… Back and forth, finding other things to distract him, repeating to him, now amazed, now exasperated, that he was having mouse hallucinations or something. Finally just asking him outright to make him see the logic, “How can I get mice out from under the couch for you if they are nonexistent?! Just think about that, Sammers! The idea is quite simply not sound!”

I became so crazed and he would not leave the couch alone, so at last I lifted it up intending to show him, “Look, there are no mice – are you SATISFIED?! Now that you have disrupted my ENTIRE evening for NOTHING?!”

The catch was that of course (You saw it coming, didn’t you?) there was indeed a mouse under there that somehow I had missed the first time, way back when. I was completely dumbfounded and then finally said, “Holy cow. My bad, Sammers.” Kinda stammered really because I couldn’t understand how I missed it during the first search. Then I just started laughing uproariously because it was so funny that I would be arguing with him and he would actually have been right all along… not to mention my apologizing. It was incredibly funny. Sam grabbed the mouse from me and graciously went on his way; he takes everything in stride in general and anyway he didn’t need to gloat – his ego is quite healthy.

This story is pretty demonstrative of quintessential family ego/stubbornness/indignation, so while PSC is laughing somewhere, and was probably rolling on the floor when it occurred, if he happened to be watching… ahem, Dad, you are the one I got it from, so there.