Word of the Day #4

Today's Word of the Day is "catarded".

See, occasionally, a mouse will find its way into our apartment.  Who can blame these mice?  After all, it's cold and barren outside but warm-with-occasional-crumbs inside.  So once every year or two I start hearing small random noises in the kitchen and realize that I'm not alone.

This year, of course, I have a cat.  So that should fix everything, right?  Well, not as such, no.

Last week Birch actually corralled a mouse - but wouldn't kill it.  He was having so much fun playing with his prey that he would intentionally let it escape so he could chase it.  Most times, the mouse would run under something and Birch couldn't figure out where it had gone.  Eventually he had it cornered in the bathroom and was repeatedly doinking its head against the side of the bathtub; at this point The Boy put a plastic container over the mouse, slid a magazine underneath, and freed it outside.

It was actually pretty cool watching Birch on the hunt.  He was so filled with purpose - you could almost hear him thinking, "YES!  This is the moment I was BORN for!" and he looked all lethal and panther-like as he stalked around sniffing for his prey.  And, I mean, he did get it, even if he didn't feel like killing it, so I felt like he was a pretty good hunter.

Today, there was another freaking mouse in the apartment (or possibly the same one again...could it be stupid enough to come back?).  This time, I was hearing its little rustling noises long before Birch gave any sign of noticing anything. Even when I got Birch's attention and pointed him at where the sounds were coming from, he didn't seem to understand what I was getting at.  The Boy decided to take matters into his own hands; he cornered and almost caught the mouse a few times, but it kept running under the bed or into other places where he couldn't reach it.  In the end we were literally tossing Birch directly at the place where it was standing, and Birch just kept wandering away.

So, yeah.  That thing where he captured the mouse last week?  That was a fluke.  Birch is a disgrace to his species.  I think he may be catarded.