8688/21607
Thanks for the suggestions about what to do with my cables (and someone has claimed the thing with the pink wires- see Substack), so this story has a happy ending. My point was really that even with a tidy up I still hung on to an unrealistic number of leads that I will never use, but maybe I forgot to say that.
As you know I loved my dog, but I am not very fond of our current cats (why couldn't they have died in Wolfie's place?). I am not cattist. I loved my first cat, Oscar and I loved Liono (another pet taken too young). In the end I even quite liked stupid Smithers (Liono's brother).
But just like some people, some cats are dicks. And Tabby (our ginger cat) and Chocolate (our tabby cat - the kids named them) are just bad cats.
Well, not Chocolate. She's OK and has just fallen in with a bad crowd. She's quite sweet and easily spooked, but goes along with it all because Tabby is evil.
Tabby used to bully Wolfie, which was actually quite impressive as Wolfie was at least ten times bigger and Tabby killed loads of birds and mice in our old house. If you had a bullying serial killer living in your house, you wouldn't feed him and stroke his hair or let him sleep on your bed or let him shit in the garden or in an indoor tray that you'd clean out for him- you would call the authorities and campaign for the reintroduction of the death penalty and then have him hanged by the neck til he be dead.
So I don't know how Tabby gets away with it. Catie and the kids seem to think he's OK. I think he's a cunt.
Was that woman who put a cat in a bin really so bad? Would you have complained if she'd put the Zodiac Killer in a bin?
I suppose that makes Chocolate the cat equivalent of Myra Hindley and I am not letting her (either of them) off her (their) crimes, but nor am I going to make out that she's the worst one just because of her gender. Tabby and Ian Brady are probably worse than Chocolate and Myra Hindley. Chocolate and (maybe) Myra Hindley are just in their thrall. Maybe I was wrong to make the comparison. In some ways Chocolate and Myra Hindley are not the same.
The cats haven't killed anything for a while (apart from possibly driving Wolfie to her death through stress), but the seasons are changing and the mice in the garden are getting drowsy or stupid and we've had a handful of mice murders this week.
Last night as we lay in bed watching telly with Phoebe I saw a mouse was by our wardrobe with the two cats stalking it. They had brought the mouse in alive, so they could let it go and then chase it around. Like that serial killer who took his victims to the woods. Release them with a headstart and then hunt them down.
I am like a woman in a 1950s cartoon and when I saw the mouse I let out a little gasp of "mouse" and when the cats moved in for the kill I was squeamish and tried to avoid watching the gore and physically moved across the bed, making Phoebe scream as she thought the mouse was on the bed and running over us.
Catie, annoyed at our childish weakness, acted like a woman not written by some men, and dealt with the situation, whilst Phoebe and me ran away and hid in her bedroom, like some women written by some men.
We love to prove stereotypes wrong in our family. Take that William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, you sexists. I bet you were the ones who were scared of mice and your wife dealt with them. But you had to be all macho in your cartoons and pretend it was the women who had to jump on chairs. Also Tom was clearly the mouse, not the cat. Sort yourselves out boys.
Apparently Catie threw my hoodie over the mouse (did she choose that as a punishment for my ineffectiveness?) and then cajoled it into a cardboard box before freeing it outside. Which was probably just delaying the inevitable and providing more sport for the cats.
We're all good at different things. I am good at sorting out the recycling, which I assume Catie is scared of, given the amount of recyclable stuff she puts in the bin, and Catie is good at dealing with mice, and making sure the kids have everything they need for school and disciplining the children and cooking and letting me do the dishwasher even though she's better at it and... look I do the recycling. I am saving the planet. It's a big job. The biggest possible. Hardly compares with giving Ernie a Wagon Wheel before he goes to school.
Anyway, due to their crimes the cats are now being shut out of the house at night (they can still get into the utility room, but the door to the kitchen is now closed when it was once open) and I am delighted to see them trapped in the prison of the entire world, whilst we are free to roam in our house.
They look in at me through the window and meow at the unfairness, but they should know by now, I hate them and am glad they are unhappy.
Sure enough, when we came down this morning, there was the cadaver of another mouse victim in the utility room. Let's face it, it was probably the one that Catie had "rescued". Its torment just prolonged by her act of piety. She should have stamped on it when she had the chance.
Who is best me or Tabby? For a couple of days it is me. Though I have never seen anyone more regret getting worried than Catie looked when I was scared of a mouse and unable to deal with it.
I am not sure what has happened with
Craven Newsround, but since it came back from its summer break it's getting three or four times the views on youtube. Maybe after 99 episodes it's actually getting good. Or maybe people just enjoy watching a man have a breakdown and forget the name of his favourite author.
Squeezing an awful lot into the five minute time slot. If you haven't watched then get on board now, whilst it's still cool
