Thursday, January 26, 2006

Foshozzy Blogozzy

A while ago--before Christmas, I think--I discovered a dead mouse inside the bag of Ozzy's food. Upon its discovery, I felt very confused. As I have mentioned before, Ozzy is quite a hunter and leaves dead mice all over for us as a sort of tribute to our patronage. We usually find them on the front porch, however--never in the house. I couldn't understand what Ozzy was trying to tell me by putting the dead mouse inside his bag of food. I wondered if he was trying to make a point about the type and quality of his food. Soon I realized that Ozzy had not, in fact, placed the dead mouse inside the bag of cat food. Instead, the mouse must have gotten in the bag and been unable to get out. And then it died, I guess. It's ironic or something. You know--a mouse (which is cat food) dying in a bag of [literal] cat food.

So a couple of weeks ago Ozzy up and vomits right in the middle of the kitchen. This is unlike him. I know other cats do this sort of thing all the time. It's cat nature to preen and vomit and have hair balls--they're so that way. We got Ozzy because we had a lot of mice in our yard and we hoped he would help and we knew we would just have to put up with him being that way. To our surprise and delight, Ozzy turned out to be a great murderer and super cool to boot. (And by that, I mean that vomiting is atypical behavior.) So I was concerned. I noticed mouse droppings in his food bowl. Sick. Could that be the culprit? Probably. But when you think about it, Ozzy eats whole mice so why should their droppings make him sick? You see what I'm saying? The principle is spelled out pretty clearly in "I Met an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly."

Long story short: We decided to store Ozzy's food in the garage in one of those round-lidded plastic storage bins from Costco. Because I am, at heart, irrational, if we find a dead mouse in there the first image that will probably come to mind will be Ozzy with Toonces-arms spinning the lid of that bin round and round and--finally--tossing in a dead mouse as some sort of inscrutable message to me.

6 comments:

  1. I bet Ozzy's all "look, Kacy: I am tired of only being a mouse-killer to you. I am much more than that. Give me a chance. Let me sleep in your bed with you and you'll see how cuddly-wuddly I can be!" Don't you hate it when people talk for their pets and or babies? I do. They always start with "she's all, or "he's saying." HATE that. Love Ozzy. Hate that.

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  2. Or maybe Ozzy's ready for a dog.

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  3. Kacy-

    This was clearly a sign. Remeber The Secret of Nymn and Flowers for Algernon... This most recent mouse, (may s/he rest in peace) was trying to send you a message. The mouse droppings in Ozzy's dish were set in Morris Code to let you know that Ozzy's food has been tainted (oil spill) by the leaky motor of the food processor in the Purina factory. Unfortunately, the poor mouse discovered this fact too late after consuming the cat food (mice gotta eat too). After trying to leave you the message, s/he crawled back into the bag to die as a final message to you. Don't let Ozzy die!

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  4. Thank you...I just love to start off my day with a good dose of irony! And now you should be thankful we don't live in the same neighborhood. I'm sure I would find it way too tempting to not sneak in with another deceased mouse and indulge in a bit of lid-spinning round myself.

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  5. I think what you have really discovered would turn Francesco Redi's world upside-down!

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  6. I love that you included the picture of Toonces the cat. I can still remember that song, "Toonces, the driving cat, the cat who could drive a car. He drives around, all over the town, Toonces the driving cat." Such deep lyrics.

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