I've sunk to a new low...

In the wee hours of each morning, Oscar comes and gets in our bed and he snuggles and purrs and is on his best behaviour - he's a champion suck-up at 6:30 or so, just before his daily pack of Whiskas cat food is opened.

Since he has access to the great outdoors through a cat door, I can depend on a sacrificial offering in the kitchen at least one day a week - usually a pitiful shrew. Although this spring we've already been bestowed a decapitated bluebird, a snake, a live baby rabbit and a young blue jay. I often wonder how I can be so enamoured with a creature that is so cruel.

Oscar terrorizes Nelson and beats him up on a regular basis, poor Shelley is even afraid of him - she gives him a very wide berth. Vivi doesn't put up with his shenanigans and will put him in his place and Ben is too laid back to get upset.

But, the thing that Oscar does that pushes my buttons THE MOST is that he yowls and scratches on the doors to go out ALL.THE.TIME. He has a CAT DOOR. He simply wants to go out the BIG DOOR, then comes right back in the CAT DOOR and REPEATS the process!

I have NEVER mistreated an animal in my life - but I must tell you, after I've had to get up for the fifth time to let him out, I now know the hang-time of a cat before it hits the back deck. I also know that when you try to "show" them how to exit through their cat door, they hang on to the edge with all their claws and little feetsies.

Now days, when I pull in the driveway and old Oscar is lying there, all stretched out on the concrete like he owns the place, it's hard not to fantasize about ending his little feline life.


And my foot gets just a tad twitchy on the accelerator...