Darwin Earns His Keep

So on Saturday night I stayed up until midnight grading papers for the end of the term. Finally I reached a good stopping point, turned out the lights, and climbed into bed beside my sleeping hubby.

As I lay there waiting to fall asleep, I heard a funny scratching noise coming from the corner of the room. Naturally, I thought it was the cat, so I whispered, "Here kitty kitty" in an attempt to invite him onto the bed and get him away from whatever he was into. He didn't come and the noise continued. Then I heard the real Darwin in the kitchen, eating his food, and it dawned on me rather suddenly that there was some other, rather large critter in that corner and not my cute little kitty. I listened to it a little longer and then I did the most rational thing a person in my situation could do-- I shook Casey and woke him up.

"There's something in that corner!" I whispered and started giggling uncontrollably. "I think it's got to be a mouse!"

"Errrgh" Casey wasn't happy, "It's just the cat."

"It's NOT the cat! He isn't even in here!" My knees were tucked up to my chest and I still couldn't stop giggling. "It's a mouse!"

"It's the neighbors then." Casey covered his face with his pillow as I argued that it most definitely wasn't just the upstairs neighbors but that there was something actually in our room. And no, it most definitely couldn't wait until morning.

Realizing that I would never let him sleep in peace without a full investigation into the cause of this mysterious noise, Casey grudgingly got out of bed and helped me move the dresser. Of course, we saw absolutely nothing there. We pulled out the bottom drawer and looked inside. Again, nothing there.

I was starting to feel kind of foolish as we turned out the lights and crawled back into bed. Then Casey sat up straight, "I hear something too! It has to be a mouse!" Of course, that's what I'd been saying all along, but it felt awfully good to have this fact acknowledged by my heretofore grumpy spouse.

This time we got back out of bed, turned the lights back on, and stuffed towels underneath the bathroom door and the bedroom door to try and make sure the mouse stayed in one room. Then we prepared ourselves to tear our dresser and room apart until we caught the little rascal.

This time when we moved the dresser, Darwin was in the room with us. Our dresser is ancient, broken, and weighs a LOT, so it is not easy to move. As the two of us worked to inch it away from the wall, Darwin paced back and forth in front of the dresser. The moment it was far enough from the wall that he could fit, Darwin darted behind it and came back out, proudly carrying his prize in his mouth. It was that easy! I was in shock! What a good cat!

We let Darwin play with it for a few minutes, and of course Casey pulled out his phone and filmed a few minutes of the fun. Then Casey kicked the mouse against a wall to kill it and we threw it away in the trash.

Here's the video, for those of you who think it's fun to see a cat playing with it's tiny mouse victim. (You can tell by our crazy giggling that we obviously thought it was quite entertaining).

All I can say is that while I loved our cat before, I now absolutely adore him. This kitty definitely has a home with us for life! And I'm strangely looking forward to the next time that any mouse tries to make a home with us. I don't think he'll last long with Darwin on the prowl!