Most mornings, Baby Evan is awake before I am so after I get him from his room I let him play on the bath mat while I brush my teeth and rub yesterday’s mascara off my face so I can start my day looking less like something the cat dragged in (oh the irony of that expression in relation to my life). Tuesday morning I threw on some yoga pants and socks in preparation for a relaxing day at home before I scooped up my little monster and headed to the bathroom. Two seconds before I set him on the ground I noticed what I thought was some of the pink and gray yarn I had been winding and kicked it a little to clear a spot. As soon as my (thankfully sock-clad) toe touched the yarn, I realized it was not yarn at all but a DECAPITATED MOUSE CORPSE WITH IT’S ENTRAILS PULLED OUT AND SPREAD ALL OVER MY BATH MAT. Apparently, some poor little field mouse thought my house looked like a cozy place the spend these last few rainy days. Unfortunately for that mouse, my cats are excellent hunters.

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I need to interrupt myself right here to tell you a different story, a far more horrifying story in my opinion, to illustrate just how little chance that mouse had of surviving even one night in my house. I think I may have told this story before, although I mostly tell it when I’m drunk since it involves a lot of hand-flapping and shrieking, but I think you’ll get the picture in writing too.

After getting their first taste of blood hunting mice in the adorable but totally uninsulated cottage we rented our first year in Connecticut, Blushes and Rabbit are always on the lookout for opportunities to kill things. During my first month in the new house (E was stationed up in New Hampshire) I woke up one night to a weird chirping sound coming from chimney wall. I figured a bird had gotten stuck somehow and planned to investigate in the morning but totally forgot, the way you forget almost everything that happens in the middle of the night. The next night while I was sleeping, several things happened in quick succession. First I felt the cat jump up on the bed. Then I heard that weird chirping sound again. And THEN I felt disgusting, leathery wings beating against my face as the live bat my cat had somehow managed to catch tried desperately to escape. I had NO IDEA how it got inside, NO IDEA how my cat managed to catch it, and NO IDEA why she put it on my head. All I managed to do at that moment was cower under the covers and whimper, wondering if it was OK to call 911 for a bat attack. Eventually I took the whole comforter off the bed and – peeking out through a tiny hole – punched out a window screen. Then I used a broom to smack the bat until I stunned it enough to scoop it up with the dust pan and threw it out the window.  I slammed the window shut, ran out of the room and spent the rest of the night on the couch, trying to remember if bats traveled in packs or could lay eggs in your brain while you slept. I still have no idea how any of that happened, but I haven’t seen a bat  since so I’m hoping that one warned all his friends about the evil attack cats in residence.

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So I wasn’t really that shocked to find a dead mouse in my bathroom, although I can’t say it was the highlight of my day. I screamed and jumped and hid the baby’s face from the carnage until E picked it up with some tissue and threw it away. Once I got over the ew ew ew ew ewwwwwwww of having touched it with my foot I actually felt a little sorry for the poor mouse, since I know it’s death was neither fast nor painless. Rabbit, the eviler of the two cats, likes to chew off a mouse’s feet first, letting it try to hobble away before she kills it. And by kills it I mean “eats the head and leaves the rest as a little present, usually somewhere I will step on it barefoot”. So yes, I felt bad for the poor tortured mouse.

That is, until I found ANOTHER dead mouse on the bath mat this morning. Those little rodents are trying to invade my house. Get ’em kitties.

So besides E and Baby Evan and I, three other family members live in our house.

First is the oft-photographed Brutus, the world’s most patient dog. E and I adopted him in Ohio in December 2006. He’s part lab, part German Shepperd, part mutt. His favorite activities include sitting on furniture, shedding, eating baby spit up, belly rubs, and tricking unsuspecting house guests into taking him for walks.

Patient dog is patient with Babyzilla

I’ve also posted pictures of Blushes, my cat since college. I adopted her in October of 2002. Blushes was supposed to be named Lady Katrina Von Mousington, but the ladies at the animal shelter in South Carolina asked me to keep they name they had given her. Her favorite activities include torturing the dog, sneaking into laps, shedding, throwing up in unfortunate places, “escaping” from the house only to discover outside is too cold and scary, eating people food and letting the baby lie on her.

Babyzilla stalks another unsuspecting victim

And finally, meet Rabbit (named as such because she’s jumpy). E and I thought Blushes would be happier with a friend (she originally had a brother but he belonged to my ex). We adopted Rabbit in 2004 while living in a tiny apartment in Virginia Beach. We thought she loved petting and cuddles but it turns out she was just so PARALYZED WITH FEAR she couldn’t run away. In reality, she’s evil. Possibly possessed. And she hates E with the burning fire of a thousand super novas. Since we brought the baby home she barely ventures downstairs any more and spends 99% of her time sleeping on the guest bed. Her favorite activities include peeing on E’s pillow, catching and torturing mice by chewing off their feet, eating rubber bands, drinking from the toilet, sleeping, shedding and plotting our deaths.

Welcome to your DOOM.

So if you ever come to the house, please excuse the pet hair.