by Vickie Gross

Created on: November 03, 2009   Last Updated: November 04, 2009

"Ewe, Moosh, is that a mouse?" You brought me a mouse?"

Great gravy, let the excitement begin!

Stuff happens and it just so happened to occur one evening as I was multi-tasking over the kitchen stove. I was stir-frying some vegetables in one wok while sir-frying rice in another, when I heard the gentle "pack-pack-pack" of our male cat pawing at the back door.

Focused on my clattering of woks and spoon ladles, I called out from the kitchen. "Boys?" Bo-oys! Moosh is pawing at the back door to be let in." (Pack-pack-pack, clatter-clatter-clatter).

"Boys, Moosh wants in."

One son called out, "I'm changing clothes, Mom."

Swishing my ladles from wok to wok, I replied in turn, "Ok, where are your brothers?"

My son calls back, "They're outside helping dad."

Pack/pack/pack/pack/pack! Upon hearing our voices, Moosh had become more persistent at the back door. I turned off the stove and pushed the woks onto the back burners. I called to my son who was coming out of the bedroom,

"I'm going to let in Moosh." Will you let everyone know that it's dinner time?" "Yes, Mom. Thank you."

I went to open the back door and found Moosh looking up at me with a limp field mouse in his mouth. At first I didn't know what it was, so I knelt down to get a closer looker. "Ewe, Moosh, is that a mouse?" You brought me a mouse?" Moosh laid the mouse on the doorsill at my feet. I quickly leaned back just a little to get a look at the lifeless critter when it suddenly jumped to life and took off running into our house. Moosh ran past my legs as he took off after the mouse. "Moosh!" Goodness gracious, you're supposed to rid mice from the house, not bring them in!" It was a moment of exasperation; dinner was sure to be delayed.

I have learned when it comes to children and hearing, selective listening requires the use of tactful key words such as "dinner time." Right on cue, everyone began to enter in to the kitchen just as the field mouse had decided to make its scampering debut across the kitchen floor. One son hollered out, "Hey! We got a mouse!" My husband exclaimed, "What in the great gravy! "We've got mice in the house!"

All of our sons busted out laughing when Moosh suddenly made his slip-sliding entrance around the corner of our floor cabinets. Moosh was in hot pursuit with his eyes totally fixated on the scampering mouse. He wasn't watching where he was going and slid right into the pantry door as the mouse ran under the crack into the safety of our pantry. WHONK! Moosh didn't seem affected at all, but the boys certainly were. They were all holding their stomachs and laughing. The two youngest fell to the floor, and the two eldest were leaning, one with his face and arm against the wall, and the other son with his elbow bracing himself on the counter top. The eldest son laughed out saying, "Moosh! Moosh, you crazy cat!" Their laughter had become distractingly contagious.

We caught the mouse and let it out in an open field. However, Moosh continued to bring us gifts from the nearby fields for a total bounty of four baby jackrabbits, one squirrel, two baby birds, and three more mice. He didn't kill even one of them. We found the jack rabbit nest and returned the babies. We took the squirrel took to a nearby park. The baby birds were being nested on our outside floodlights so it was easy to put them back, saving for the fact that Moosh was with us and the parent birds kept dive-bombing him. As for the three more mice, we literally drove them far away.

Moosh is now an inside cat and earns his keep as the family back massage therapist, whenever, of course, he decides there is a "knead." He has not produced any mouse gifts from the inside of the house and we are assuming that is a good thing.

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