Tales of a Mighty Mouser--Part Two

So in my original post about Sunny's exterminator position, Tales of a Mighty Mouser, I mentioned that there was another incident which merited its own post.  I decided to stop being a tease and share.

Now, just to warn you, this is not one for the faint of heart.  It is a testament to the great love I bear my sweet furry beast that he was ever allowed back into my room after this particular incident.

Now, when there's a mouse around, there are usually some early warning signs.  Sunny will hear things, or smell things and I will notice him going on the prowl.  He'll investigate corners and check behind doors.  I've learned to recognize the warning signs that something has found it's way in, and is soon to find its way out the hard way.

This time, there were no such warnings.  It was mid-July.  It was the first time that I was going to be the person solely responsible for my company's presence at our biggest national conference.  This was our target group of customers and I was one of two who represented the advance team, arriving early to start the setup, only to be joined by the rest of the crew later.

To say that I was wound up, would be an understatement.  I had been working late to get things together and that meant that all of my personal packing was happening last minute.  Now, Sunny is not a fan of my suitcase.  I've done enough business travel that he knows what it means and is less than thrilled when he sees it out and open.  I had been running around like crazy to get everything done.  I was pretty sure I was finished and was going to crash, praying I could shut my brain off long enough to sleep.

I crawled into bed exhausted and wired.  Within moments, Sunny was there.  I made short shrift of his evening ritual of scritches and treats, trying to get to sleep as quickly as possible.  Once that was done, Sunny did something very unusual.  He started digging at the covers and sniffing.  Now, you have to understand, I am not one for making beds and with the July heat, the covers were bunched up in the middle of the bed where I had shoved them in order to keep cool.

I pushed Sunny away and told him to stop being a nudge, because I needed to sleep.  He came back and did it again.  I pushed him away again.  Again he came back.  I gave up.  I rolled over, presenting him with my back, did my best to ignore him and eventually managed to fall asleep.

Big mistake.

I got up the next day and uncharacteristically jumped out of bed right away to get going.  Since I was going to be away for a few days, I decided to make the bed.

You do know where this is going right?

As I shook out the covers, to my intense horror, I discovered the reason for Sunny's odd behavior of the previous evening.  A tiny furry body fell out from the rumpled comforter and sheets.  I cannot tell you how badly I shuddered with the pure skeeve of having spent the night, blissfully slumbering with a dead mouse in my bed.  It was a very good thing that there was no food in my system.

The bed got stripped and the offending corpse tossed out into the bushes.  I was still twitching when I got to the office to meet my co-worker and collect a few things before my flight.  I called my brother, whose squeamish tendencies can, usually, only be brought out by needles being stuck into him summed it up brilliantly...EEEEWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!

Yeah.  That about covers it.

Enter Candyland

As the internet has so aptly shown us, cats are cute.  A video with kitten antics can send the most hardened personality into a diabetic coma from the sweetness.  It is for cats a tool, defense mechanism and weapon.

When you have a cat as intelligent as Sunny, this can be a dangerous thing.  He is very good at using his cute to get what he wants.

One of his most potent weapons is the tummy fur.  Now, for anyone who understands animals, this is one of the most emotionally powerful things a cat can do.  For Sunny, this is especially true.  For almost any animal, their belly is their most vulnerable body part.  To expose their belly is an expression of extreme trust.  When you've adopted an animal who was abused, trust is incredibly precious.  A little piece of my heart melts every time he does this.  It doesn't hurt that it's just so soft and fuzzy and he looks ridiculously precious when he does it.



Of course, with Sunny, it is a trap.  He will show you his tummy, but it is not to be touched.  Unless he is half asleep and in a REALLY mellow mood, touching the tum will get your hand grabbed in a very sharp set of teeth.  He doesn't bite down with me, but he does express his displeasure at this transgression.  The revealing of the tummy is an invitation to scritch him behind his ears, or on his chin and cheeks.  The tummy itself is verbotten.

He's developed some other uses for the cuteness.  The primary use of the kitty superpower is to get his paws on treats.  Sunny is a treat-powered feline.  Treats are to be acquired as frequently as possible.  Treats are the first thing he wants in the morning when I wake up.  It doesn't matter where he's been sleeping, when the alarm goes off, he's in the bed, looking for treats.  Sometimes, he just waits for me, so I open my eyes to this...



"Are you up?  I've been waiting.  You've been asleep for so long and I've been waiting that WHOLE time for treats."  At least he is nice enough to not actually wake me himself and opening your eyes to that level of cute accompanied by a happy purr is not a bad way to start the day.

His other cute habit is when I'm not paying attention and he wants something.  This is from a few days ago.  I was working on the computer and he wanted to get my attention.  "Hey, hey there.  Stop tapping at the machine and give me treats."

I know I'm especially susceptible, but I find this to be unbearably cute as well, especially since he will often walk over and rub his head up against me once he has my attention.  Part of it is that he never used to do things like this.  It's just another sign of the bond between us.

Aside from using his super-powers for treats, there are the completely unintentional, casual cute moments:  putting his paws over his face to sleep, stretching with that little purring meow when he wakes or poking his head out from the covers after he's been sleeping under them.

A day with Sunny is a day filled with an overload of toothache-inducingly-sweet cuteness...and I'm happy to live in this candy land.

Medic!!!

When I first bought my house, my sister-in-law gave me a supremely practical gift, especially given that I was going to be doing renovation work on my own--a fully stocked first aid kit and a large bottle of hydrogen peroxide for cleaning out the cuts and scrapes I was likely to earn along the way.  When it came to the renovation work though, it didn't need to be pulled out very often.  I'm actually quite adept with both hand and power tools.  However, that bottle of peroxide has come seriously in handy, since I got Sunny.

I'll start by saying that I just don't believe in de-clawing.  Look at your hands.  Imagine amputating every finger at the knuckle at the tip just behind your nails.  That's what de-clawing does to a cat.  I just could never do that to an animal I love and I am absolutely willing to live with the consequences of that decision.

The most frequent use of the peroxide bottle is when I do need to trim his claws.  While Sunny will purr as I clean his ears or sit stoically still while I get the goopies out of the corner of his eyes, he does NOT like to have his claws trimmed.  He will generally let me get one or two done before he decides he's had enough and takes a swipe at me.  If I'm lucky, I remember to do it in the middle of the day when he's just woken up from a nap.  Then he's usually kind of groggy so I can get a whole paw in one shot and sometimes even a claw or two on another.  Still, it frequently ends with me heading to the bathroom to wash with antibacterial soap and flushing with peroxide.

Sometimes things happen that are complete accidents.  Having him in my arms when some loud sound from outside startles him has led to ruined shirts and scratches in places that make it look like I should have been having a lot more fun than I did.  The best (hmmm, not sure of that word choice) was part of one of his mousing adventures.  He had caught one in the dining room and we were engaging in the ritual of me, oh so sweetly, saying, "Good boy!!  Now put it down so I can get rid of it and there will be lots of treats."  He knows the T-word and he actually obeyed.  I was reaching with tissues to grab it.  Unfortunately for me, it was still quite alive and kicking...and it moved.  We were both grabbing for it at the same time and his paw was above my hand.  I managed to grab the mouse's tail, but yowza I had a serious scratch on the back of my hand.  Mousie got tossed out into the bushes to die in nature and I came back in to tend my wound.

I couldn't really be upset with Sunny.  He gave me this pitiful look when it happened.  It was kind of an "I'm really sorry, but it MOVED!" look.  What could I do?  How do you yell at an animal for responding to its most basic primal instinct?  He still got his treats and licked my hand in apology.  I'm not sure that soap and peroxide were even necessary given how much that one bled.  The band-aids came out and the antibacterial goop was applied.  Since it was my right hand, there were some serious twinges before it started healing since I am right handed.  Mousing is his job though, so I really couldn't complain.

So, I have faint red lines on the backs of my hands, and always will.  Who cares?  It's a small price to pay for the purrs and the head butts and the ridiculous cuteness that is my boy.

I will need a new bottle of peroxide soon though.