A New Level

Don't be fooled by the benign squint on Mia's face. She's a member of a gang of cold blooded killers. A gang that lives in my house. I've unwittingly been supporting this gang for years. They're reign of terror over small woodland creatures knows no boundaries. I'm sure there are wanted posters with their faces on them hanging in every vole hole and chipmunk den for miles around.

Even though she's the smallest, I think that Mia is the ringleader. Her method of choice is to catch said quarry and then bring it into the house and release it for hours of bait and switch fun. She and Marbles are the main serial killers, though Big Zeke isn't above joining in the game now and then. Miss Girl would never, never participate in any sort of killing behavior. She's a perfect lady (partly why she's my favorite, there's no blood on her paws).

We had a chipmunk living in the house a few weeks ago that I would see darting around periodically. He got so bold (and generally pissed off) that he would jump at the cats, and Becks when they came near his hiding spot (behind a curtain, in the bookcase, etc.), chirping in as angry a tone as a teeny furry creature can muster. It was almost cute, but also a little sad. He just wanted to go home, I'm sure. Well, I found a dead chipmunk on the oriental carpet in the dining room two weeks ago and figured that was the poor, angry chippie who finally met his maker at the claws of Marbles. Then I had an awful thing happen last Monday. I mean, awful. I walked into my bedroom at approximately noontime and I was bowled over by the smell of dead animal as I passed thru the doorway. GROSS. Immediately, I got on my hands and knees and began searching for the offending carcass, cursing the cats the entire time. Jonathan asked me what I was cursing about and when I told him he said, "You better find it!" Thanks, honey. The thing is that I could not find it. It was baffling and smelly. And there were flies buzzing around. Ewww. Jonathan came in to take a turn at the morbid mission. HE couldn't find it either (ha!). This was really not funny. The flies were buzzing around our bedroom like B1 bombers. The room was virtually humming and I needed to find the carcass. So, I followed my nose to the strongest scented area. It was Jonathan's beautiful antique mahogany bureau. Please, no I said to myself. Removing each drawer gingerly, I could tell that I was onto something for the scent of dead was escalating to a gag inducing odor. Pointing my flashlight into the back corner of the bureau revealed the source of foulness. A decaying chipmunk carcass. Apparently, he'd been forced into hiding and forgot to come out. So he died. In Jonathan's bureau. And I had to tell Jonathan.

Well, of course it was all fine despite the small speech on cats, my cats and how horrible they are and why do we have to have them, etc. He even removed the carcass since I couldn't possibly touch it even with gloves on and several layers of plastic bags. Very gallant of him. I chose not to tell him about the small maggot collection I found in the corner of his drawer. Instead, I had to man up and get those nasty suckers out of there by myself. Marbles actually had the nerve to come into the room and poke around in the drawer that was on the floor while I was doing this wretched job, acting all curious and cute. Unbelievable. So that's this week's grisly tale of life at my house. Just when I think I've had to deal with the grossest thing yet, my animals manage to trump me with a new adventure of disgustingness. It's absolutely ridiculous. I don't know many people who have had to excavate rotting chipmunks and maggots from their spouse's prized antique bureau. I might be alone in that particular category. Lucky, lucky me.