Twenty feet in matters of life and death.
Does 20 feet change whether you want to end or save life?
Okay. It’s not like I consider that much. Even on long swims in the pool when my mind desperately searches for something to ponder other than a continual loop of The Magical Mystery Tour.
Early one morning last week, I slipped out of the house to go swim.
About an hour later than I hoped but still early enough that everyone was sleeping.
Stepping toward the car, I noticed the cats on full alert. Each black and white hair at attention. Backs crouched, bodies rigid and heads tilled down with eyes focused as a laser.
They’ve got some poor creature trapped.
Darn it when these things happen and I’m late.
I stopped and went toward their stares.
Oreo, the bigger of the feline beasts, darted toward an furry thing.
A mole. Or so I thought.
But no. On further inspection it was a mouse.
A little brown Stuart Little. Without clothes of course.
Ugh.
That mouse was good as eaten like a tater tot crispy golden brown out of the oven.
I pulled Oreo off the thing. Fished my keys out of my bag. Opened the door and pushed his protesting body inside.
Same with Daisy. Our other petite feline. In she went.
On my way to the car I checked on Stuart.
Actually first he was just standing there on the drive. Shaking uncontrollably, his little paws super-glued to the asphalt.
When I bent down to him, that’s when he scampered under this planter.
Little frighted booger.
You know. I couldn’t help but wonder why in December, when a mouse — maybe even a distant cousin of this fellow — was terrorizing my kitchen . . .
a.) my cats could care less.
b.) I tried to kill it with everything in my limited arsenal. Poison, sticky traps. Bribing the cats with a year’s worth of Fancy Feast.
And today, there was no way I could get in my car and drive to the pool and leave my cats batting this critter around like a shuttlecock.
Oh was a difference 20 feet makes. And being found inside the confines of my house.
Just ask Oreo.
