Mills, mon Aristochat

Everybody wants to be a cat,
Because a cat's the only cat
Who knows where it's at.
Everybody's pickin' up on that feline beat,
'Cause everything else is obsolete.
-"Everybody wants to be a cat," The Aristocats, Disney

That cat is my hero this morning. After an overnight interpreting assignment that has left me useless and out sick from work today, I was awakened to the familiar sound of Mills chasing thin air as he does every morning. Only this morning it wasn't thin air. It was a mouse.

Sadly I was on the phone to Simon when I discovered what Mills had and therefore caused him some permanent hearing damage when I split the sound barrier squealing.

My little mouser first cornered his prey in the closet in my office, then herded it out to the sitting room as I got something to scoop it up in so that I could usher it outside. Mills chased it out from under the chair, and then kept it under the table until I could get it into a tupperware container. I then took it outside and flung it into the yard and that little buggar ran STRAIGHT BACK FOR THE STAIRS to come back in the front door. Thankfully it saw me standing there and ducked around into the bushes on the front of the house, then into the house via a vent on the front in the foundation. Hooray.

I couldn't just sit and watch Mills kill it though...don't get me wrong, I don't want mice in my house but there is something so evil about how cats kill their prey. And it made eye contact with me...that was all she wrote. Simon had encouraged me on the phone to save it, chuck it out the door to freedom rather than let Mills kill it, so that's what I did. And the intelligence I saw in those eyes (coupled with terror, of course) lead that little critter right back into the crawl space under my house. Again I say Hoo-Ray.

His adventure this morning has bolstered the opinion in Mills's mind that he is the alpha in this pack. As I was making my tea, he stood up on his hind legs to look (he seems to think that this simple posture will magically make him tall enough to see over the top of the counter) and the dogs came over to see what he was watching. I don't know what exactly happened next but Mills moved his head at them like "You want some of this?" and all three dogs BACKED UP. Too funny.

I gave my little man a saucer with a little milk in the bottom and scratched his ears before he took off on patrol again. Je t'aime, mon Aristochat. Je t'aime très beaucoup.