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The Cat who Chased a Moth

by Julie Cook, Stone Mountain, Georgia, USA

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Recently we have had an invasion of very tiny moths. They seem to live in the garage and are attracted by the kitchen light that shines through the window of the door leading from the kitchen to the garage. They come into the house anytime someone opens the door; and we've been trying to kill them as quickly as possible ever since we found Hobbes poised to leap from the top of the refrigerator to the ceiling in an attempt to capture one.

This particular event took place at about 2 am on Sunday morning. All was relatively quiet in the house. I was finishing up some cooking and had taken a break while a bowl of white chocolate cooled before making a frosting for a cake. I went into the living room to read a chapter in my book while I waited and noticed that Hobbes was fast asleep on the kitty condo, DH was asleep on the couch, presumably deeply asleep judging by the snoring coming from the depths of the cushions and Selena was curled up on the back of the couch with her nose buried in her tail.

Apparently a moth had escaped our notice and had flown past Hobbes ears because I happened to glance his way at the same time his ears twitched. Literally in a blink of an eye and another twitch of the ear he became alert and assumed the stalk mode. He managed to do this without disturbing Selena which gives you some indication of how deeply asleep she was as normally if Hobbes moves she wakes up and watches him, I think to make sure she gets her fair share of the treats. Anyhow, Hobbes jumps from the kitty condo and began stalking the moth and moves out of my sight behind the couch. I don't give this a second thought and return to my book. The next thing I know, Hobbes has leapt onto the back of the couch in pursuit of his moth, landing near Selena and knocking her off the back of the couch. She lands on top of DH, apparently with claws extended which wakes him causing him to sit straight up with an oath that is unprintable in this family oriented group. In his sleep drugged state he shoves Selena off of his chest onto the floor and directly on top of Hobbes who has stalked his moth to the front of the couch and is crouched, shifting from one foot to the other in preparation for a pounce. I think perhaps Hobbes thought the moth had engaged troops to help battle the fierce tiger and those troops had attacked from the rear because he sprung like a tightly wound watch spring, straight up, pirouetted in mid air and took off to the back of the house. Selena who throughout this whole episode has been pushed and shoved out of her warm nest has decided that she's going to retreat as well and takes off in hot pursuit of Hobbes who has by now gotten to the back of the house and turned around only to find Selena chasing him. He obviously decides she's the cause of this great humiliation and jumps her, tumbling the two of them into a ball of orange and sable cat fur and a great cat battle begins with the ball of cats finally separating and Selena turning and running, back through the house, in the direction of the kitchen with Hobbes chasing her.

Ultimately, I stop laughing and pick myself up from the floor. DH stops glaring at me (as if I had something to do with all of this) and decides it's safer to sleep in the bedroom and Hobbes and Selena? Hobbes caught up with her and licked her into submission...lick, lick, lick...now let me have the other ear sweetheart...lick, lick, lick.

Is the moon still full?

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Editor's note:

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