Orange Cat

I don't like cats. In fact, I have an irrational fear of them, and while I know it is irrational - this hasn't made me get over it. It has made me to pretend to get over it so I don't pass it along to my kids, which I have been a wee bit too successful at.

They love cats.

They have never met a cat they didn't love.

They think when I tell my story about how I became afraid of cats, I must be exaggerating.

Thankfully, they are both allergic to cats so we can never have one.

Orange Cat is a neighborhood cat who occasionally hangs around our house. This thrills the kids, as they are eager to befriend Orange Cat and know that so long as they don't touch their face, they won't have swollen, watery eyes. They mostly remember this.

A few mornings ago, Helen was delighted to announce that Orange Cat had returned. She witnessed Orange Cat crawling out from beneath our car and expressed surprise to Ed that Orange Cat could fit under our car. Little did she know, Orange Cat was hiding under our car doing very, very bad things.

Ed dropped Helen off at the corner so she could walk to school with her friend (more on that later). He then drove off in our car, that Orange Cat had been shamefully hiding under. As he rolled off, he revealed a beautiful gold finch that is one of several that hangs out in our backyard. Only the beautiful gold finch will no longer be hanging out in our backyard, because the gold finch was dead - and it was clear to me bad things had happened to that bird on its way to death.

I was horrified. I almost cried when I saw it lying there. It was bordering on disgusting because the flies had found it. I wanted to pretend I hadn't seen it, but I try to live with a "smelt it dealt it" sort of policy on these issues, and I knew that Connor would be walking right by it later that afternoon when he parked his bike in the shed.

And so I found myself adulting. I went inside, grabbed a plastic bag, grabbed a plastic shovel that had been lying by our trashcan for no reason except nobody bothered moving it, and then I scooped the body up and disposed of it - along with the shovel and bag.

So Orange Cat - I already didn't like you because of your feline nature. Now I really don't like you because of your murderous tendencies.

Get off my lawn!