Darwin at his best

So I've been thinking about letting my cats outside. Violet LOVED going out when I lived in Lansing. She'd lay about in the sun and explore and -- bonus for me! -- bring all sorts of lovely half-dead creatures into the house. (note the sarcasm on that last one). Seriously, that girl was quite the hunter. Once she very carefully brought me a whole family of mice -- momma and 4 teeny tiny babies. All strategically crippled, but not killed, leaving the "fun" part for me. (The vet assures me that all of this is a sign of respect. But between you and me, I could have done without Vi's signs of respect on my bed! And WTF do you DO with 4 half-dead mice. I mean, after you've decided that just throwing them over the fence into the nasty neighbor's yard is just too mean. To the mice.)

So anyway, last weekend, I got the beasties all caught up on their vaccinations and went and bought a new collar for Scout, since she somehow managed to completely SHRED the old one. Don't ask me how. I'll try to remember to post a picture of it later -- it's ridiculous. So I bought her this cute green argyle collar at Target (3 bucks! I love Target! Shred away, Scout -- I can afford a new one!) and I put it on her. Tightened it up enough that I figured it wasn't choking her but she also couldn't get it caught on things. 5 minutes later, I came out into the living room to find Scout oddly hunched over on the floor. I thought she was about to puke, but it turns out that the little genius had somehow managed to get her bottom jaw CAUGHT under the collar and she's sitting there with her jaw stuck open, at a complete loss for how to handle this particular dilemma. She didn't even look angry -- just resigned. Anyhow, after I finished laughing, I realized that probably it didn't feel very good to her, so I let her loose from her self-made trap. Got a claw to the hand for my trouble, too. Maybe I shouldn't the Scout-monster out, afterall. I'm not sure she's evolved enough to survive on the mean streets of Petaluma!