The Hunter

So, our beloved cat, Scraps, is a killing machine. When we lived in Oklahoma, Scraps would bring in monstrous wolf spiders from the garage. Chad would be gone to Texas and I would have to deal (or not) with the beasts. I don't do spiders. Not even dead ones. So, I would quarantine the area where the dead spider lay with something like a trash can over the top. If I'd had orange caution cones I would have used them also. I would leave the dead wolf spiders for Chad to deal with when he got home. I don't think he ever quite understood why I couldn't just scoop the dead thing up in a dust pan and deal with it like a woman. He never said that, but I felt that way about myself. "It's dead already. Just scoop it up." But I never could. He would come home and I would request that he deal with the devil and then we'd say our hello's.

Since we've moved to Texas, Scraps has moved on to other "Texas -like" creatures. Lizards, mainly. He has brought in birds from the field behind our house twice. Once, he left only feathers in our bedroom as evidence which, thank God, my in-laws dealt with before I had to. The second time it was around 3:00 a.m. when Scraps bolted across our legs as we were slumbering. I heard a weird fluttering and realized something was amiss. Poor little bird was hiding in the corner of our bedroom. Guess who rescued it? Chad. Mighty Man. He saved the day again. I'm not sure if the bird made it, but I was so thankful he gave it a chance.

Lizards are a regular play thing for Scraps. Mind you, the cat has no claws but that doesn't matter. He brings the poor things in and plays with them....to death. I'll find him playing with some tailless little lizard that is begging for help. Except...you guessed it...I can't pick the things up no matter what I tell myself in my head. "It won't hurt you. It's actually cute. It's okay. Just pick it up by it's tail and rescue the poor thing before Scraps kills it." No, no. Instead, I yell at the cat, yell at the dog who's chasing the cat, lock them both in the bedroom while I quarantine the poor lizard who somehow made its way across the living room into the kitchen, then patiently wait for Mighty Man to come home and save the day again. All of this involved cussing and wondering how I would ever handle children if I can't handle a cat, a dog, and a lizard.

Chad did come home about 30 minutes later. He opened the door and I exclaimed, "Get the poor lizard. He's over there!" He rescued the lizard without a word about my lack of womanhood and then we said our "hello's"...