News flash! Cats love small critters that are smaller than they are, whether it is for play, or food, or both. Surprised? I didn’t think so.
So you see, our cat discovered a little lizard this morning and brought it to our back porch [(still alive and apparent good condition) minus a short piece of tail that had been broken/chewed off]. I gently picked up the lizard, brought it inside, and placed it inside the protective care of a mason jar. I’m sure you can hear the kids now, “Oh, can we keep it?” I figured, that it would be cool for the kids to observe a lizard and told them that we would go buy one of them do-hickey containers for reptiles, (the cheap plastic kind) once they finished their chores.
Later this afternoon, we piled the brood into the mini-van and beat feet to the local PetSmart. With lizard abode in tow and a bag full of small crickets, we headed home....Our kids wanted to name our new found pet and because we were unsure as to the gender, we settled for Meninos (Portuguese for little ones)
Upon our arrival, we entered the kitchen to find 1,000,000,000,000,000 pieces of broken mason jar on the floor and a poor, almost dead lizard not quite 10 feet away from the point of impact. I quickly shooed the kids back out the door, along with one un-repentant cat as I commenced cleaning up the mess. By the time I was finished cleaning up the mess, Meninos had become acquainted with Fairy Lu the Fish. Without burial, toilet express, or parting words, I un-ceremoniously dropped Meninos into the trash and chalked up another one for ignored warnings in my head (put the lizard where the cat can’t get it).
5 comments:
Putting things where the cat can't get them is not as easy as it sounds. We put the margarine up on the fridge thinking the cat couldn't get to it. Only to catch him up there, yellow whiskers and all. Personally, I hope he dies a painful death from clogged arteries.
And Meninos? Sounds like a blatant case of manipulation to me. ;)
I thought Meninos sounded better than Pat, Jamie, Kim, etc.
You should have put the jar on the floor so when the cat tried to get it he'd just roll it around without breaking it. Kind of anti-intuitive, but I bet it would have worked. Condolences on the lizard.
How'd the kids take it? When our rabbit died I thought the kids would be devastated. I remember telling them when they got home from school, "I'm sorry but Chocolate Chip died today." Elisabeth's response..."Oh,well." Jake and Scott's response..."Cool! Can we see the dead rabbit!" Kids! You just never know!
P.S.
Tell your wonderful wife hi for me! We sure miss you guys!
Julie- I'll have to blame you then. You had the answer, but were too busy frolicking in the woods, eating bloody hamburgers ;-).
Cari- The kids wanted to punish the cat. I had to expalin to them that the cat could not be punished for "being a cat" and the hunting instincts cats are born with. Overall, though they handled the death of the lizard better than the stray cat we took in when we first arrived in Texas (probably because we only had the lizard for a few hours).
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