The Gift

Anyone with a cat knows that they like to bring their owners "gifts." Sometimes they only bring them up to the doorway and lay them on the ground for us, but sometimes they make it past the door and bring their gifts all the way into the house. Yesterday was one of those days.

Lucky ran in through the screen door with a bird in his mouth. He dropped it at my husband's feet (because he loves him the most). I suppose this was intended to be the most generous gift of all -- the bird was still alive and immediately began fluttering its wings and trying to fly. As Lucky watched, ready to pounce again lest his prize get away, my husband jumped up from the table and acted upon the real gift; the gift of a little unexpected excitement in our otherwise routine day.

We had four things to deal with -- five, actually, if you count trying to keep our daughter from witnessing what might have gotten ugly. We had to grab two cats whom we knew could be quick, and whose appetites had been whet by the frantic bird and feathers on the floor. And we had to grab the dog, who thought that barking and circling the bird was the best game ever.

We tag-teamed. I grabbed the dog. My husband grabbed Lucky and threw him in the garage, and the other cat ran off. Then my husband had to capture the bird and get it outside without any of the animals following him.

We felt a little bad that Lucky was not only denied his catch, but was banished to the garage and missed all the action. We praised him later for being such a good hunter, but cats don't really understand what we're saying. We'll have to just assume he saw how excited we were about the bird, and leave it at that.