“Damn mouse!”
I didn’t dare respond, but my wife’s anger worried me. She was cleaning the fresh mouse shit off the kitchen counter with enough homicidal rage to viciously slaughter someone a lot bigger than that poor mouse.
“Whad’ya do this time, Husband Dearest? Replace my old-fashioned, snap-their-little necks mouse trap with one of your they-can-wiggle-free-anytime-they-want-to humane ones?”
I looked down, remembering the last time I found a mouse in one of her traps. It wasn’t dead, but it was in such nightmare-ish bad shape that I couldn’t possibly save it. Gritting my teeth, I did the only humane thing I could think of: I stamped hard, killing the poor thing with a single blow. I looked back up at my wife, still cleaning the kitchen counter with a vengeance. My fear was gone. “Look, Marcia, it’s only a wee mouse who doesn’t know any better way to feed itself than from the crumbs we’re not the best at always remembering to clean off our counters.” I could have sworn I heard a squeak of gratitude and agreement from somewhere behind the walls.
Marcia, still in her Big Pharma-executive work clothes, stretched out across the freshly cleaned counter, oozing contempt. “Perhaps you plan to teach your mouse to use those speech buttons you bought for our utterly useless, wouldn’t kill a mouse if its life depended on it, cat?”
Watching Marcia arch seductively, I caught my breath; I had to admit she was gorgeous.
But our tomcat, on cue, hit one of his new speech buttons, repeatedly, causing an annoyingly canned human voice to call out “Feed me now.” repeatedly. I leaped up and reached for the cat food.
Marcia sneered. “What were you telling me you’d programmed the other buttons to say? ‘Yes?’ ‘No?’ ‘Good?’ ‘Bad?’ ‘Cuddle?’ ‘Water?’ ‘Fresh kitty litter, please?’ And, your pièce de résistance of ridiculousness, calling me and you: ‘Mommy.’ ‘Daddy.’ But all the cat ever hits is ‘Feed me now.’”
True, Marcia’s nastiness toward me had escalated sharply, but that was no excuse for failing to let the bad smell of the cat food register until after I’d put it on the floor and was walking away. In a panic I wheeled about, shouting at the approaching cat:
“Bad.”
“Feed me now.”
The cat paused on his way to the food, looking up at me. I knew he knew and understood exactly what I was saying. But I also knew him well enough to recognize the rebellious, you-say-no-so-I’m-gonna-do-it in his eye. Instead of resuming his leisurely stroll he now pounced on that bad cat food.
I slid my feet into the side of the cat food dish as if I was stealing third in baseball.
Marcia laughed, making me wonder if she’d slipped a poisonous sample she’d brought home from her job with Big Pharma into the cat food or just left it out too long, figuring the cat deserved to die for his failure to kill the mouse.
I snatched the cat food away from the cat in the nick of time and threw it away. Exhausted on every level, I found myself looking at Marcia, who was busy…as usual…with her phone. I had the feeling I should do something…anything…but instead I…as usual…just curled up and took a nap.
“Mommy.”
“Bad.”
“Water.”
“No.”
“Daddy.”
Over and over again.
What was the cat saying?
But the cat was curled up next to me, snoozing peacefully with his head upside down…far from the pet-speech buttons in the living room. I got up and took the opportunity to make sure the bad cat food was securely inaccessible in the kitchen garbage, keeping the cat in view through the open bedroom door.
Again I heard that creepy automated voice from the living room:
“Mommy.”
“Bad.”
“Water.”
“No.”
“Daddy.”
Huh?
Marcia came out of the front hall where she kept her stuff from work.
I flinched in anticipation of more unpleasantness, but she utterly surprised me with a peace offering: She handed me a steaming mug of my favorite tea. Ever so gratefully I was about to guzzle it down.
“Mommy.”
“Bad.”
“Water.”
“No.”
“Daddy.”
We both looked toward the living room. Even the cat bounded off the bed to pounce on something there and I again thought I heard what sounded like a grateful squeak from behind the walls.
Several weeks later I filed for divorce.
