the furs

"Good gosh Mason, what the mouses is that?"

"What's what?"

"THAT," and I pointed to the collection of bits and pieces of fawn-coloured fur on the floor lyin' next to her.  Reachin' out to touch one, Mason gave me a smack to the paw.

But you know what they say.  They say, better a smack to the paw, than a smack to a jaw. 

Least that's what I say.

MOUSES!

So anyway...

"So what's with the collection of fur?" I asked, rubbin' my one smacked front paw with my other.  "You plannin' on donatin' bits of your fur to cats who need wigs or somethin' like that?  The peep did that with her hair a couple times.  You know, when she went from a long pony tail to a shorter one.  Why the mouses anyone would want used hair, I don't know, but apparently there's a need out there for it.  You plannin' on doin' that, Mason?  Huh? HUH?"

Mason scowled at me like only a Mason can do.  "These furs are mine," she said, protectively.  "They're all mine.  Peep #1 wants to throw them out as she says I don't need them anymore, but I know differently.  I need them because they're mine."

I gave Mason the best look of shock I could muster, although to be perfectly honest, in this particular matter, I was kinda in agreement with the peep.  I mean, no cat needs fur that's no longer uh...  Um...  You know...  Attached.  MOUSES!

"I know!" Mason squealed, apparently misreading my shocked look as bein' one of agreement.  "How can the peep not understand that these furs are mine, and therefore, I need to keep them?"

"Well..." and I pawed at the floor, bein' extra careful not to get too close to Mason's collection of fur for fear of another smack.  "She might be thinkin' that..."

"She's not thinking, at all," Mason quipped.  "If she were..."

"Uh yeah," I interrupted.  "Mason, I'm not really too interested in this here convo.  You have anythin' better to talk about?"

Now it was my sister's turn to look shocked.

MOUSES!

"No offence or anythin'," I explained, "but this here conversation is not about me, and YOU DO KNOW how I prefer conversations that are.  Right?"

Mason sat back on her haunches.  "What if I were to tell you my prized collection of combed out fur was valuable?  What if I were to to tell you it was worth a lot of money?"

I paused, quickly runnin' the numbers in my head.  "You plannin' on givin' me those furs to sell 'em on E-Bay?"

"Of course not!" Mason snapped.  "They're mine.  ALL mine.  I'm not giving them to anyone.  I'm not selling them, either!  I'm keeping them right here where they belong."

"Well the peep would say they belong in the garbage."

"Well then the peep would be wrong."  

"You know the peep is gonna come gather 'em up to chuck 'em, the moment she sees you're not sittin' there on guard," I informed my sister

"Then I will never, ever, EVER stray from this spot.  I will stay here on guard for eternity."

"You plannin' on never eatin' again?" I asked.

"I'll have Peep #1 serve me my meals right here in the family room.  I see no reason why she can't provide room service."

I chuckled at the thought of Mason explainin' that one to the peep.

"What's so funny?" Mason scowled.

"Nothin'," and I struck the kitty loaf yoga pose, tuckin' both front paws under me and out of Mason's free-wheelin' smacky-paw reach.  "And what happens when you need to use the litter box?" I asked.  "The peep isn't gonna bring litter in here.  So what happens when you have to pee?  Huh?  HUH?"

Mason thought for a moment.  "I'll figure that out when the time comes," she growled.  "I'm not letting the peep outsmart me, Seville.  She is NOT getting my collection of fur.  It's bad enough she stole my furs in the first place.  All that combing was completely unnecessary.  I know I was enjoying it at the time, but that was BEFORE I saw how much of my fur she had combed out.  I'm at risk of going bald because of her actions.  Bald!  BALD!"

I screwed up my nose.  "You do know that's why the peep combs us in the first place, right?  Not to make us bald or anythin' like that, but to comb out our excess furs so we don't swallow 'em and cough up hairballs."

No answer.

Of course.

MOUSES!

Hearin' the sound of a package of treats bein' opened in the kitchen, my ears perked right up.  "You comin' for treats?" I asked, makin' my way out of the room.

"Are you kidding me?" Mason asked.  "That's just a ploy of the peep's to get me to leave my precious collection of fur unattended.  "I'm not stupid, Seville.  I'm not falling for her tricks."

"Suit yourself," I told her, "but I, for one, am headin' in for some treats."

Chowin' down on a treat of temptation, I could hear Mason in the other room, muttering to herself.  Or was that her tummy growlin', I wondered aloud.  "MASON..." I called.  "Are you SURE you don't want some of these treats?  They're really good, you know.  Very tasty, for sure."

As if knowin' what I was sayin' to Mason, the peep gave the treat package another really good shake.

Well that did it.  At the sound of those treats, Mason came runnin' into the room and skidded to a halt by the peep's feet.  She looked up with a look of utter starvation.  Ol' Peepers obliged her by scatterin' a few treats on the kitchen floor.

Polishin' off the last of her treats, Mason wiped her mouth with a paw.  "Those sure did hit the spot but now, I must go back and protect my precious collection of fur."  She headed out of the room.

"NOOOOO!!!"  Mason screamed.

"Yup, just as I predicted."  I sauntered into the family room.  "Did the peep come in here and steal your collection of furs while you were scoffin' down those treats?"

Mason sighed the loudest of sighs.  "Oh, woe is me," my sister cried.

"Ah quit bein' a drama queen," I told her.  "You knew darn well the peep wasn't gonna let you keep all those combed out furs.  She lets one of us do that, and she'll have to let ALL of us do it, too.  Next thing you know, we'll be wadin' through mountains and mountains of fur.  To be perfectly honest, I don't know how you got her to let you keep your precious combed out furs for as long as she did.  I mean, you must have had 'em for well over an hour."

Mason lifted a paw and extended her razor-sharp claws, one by one.  They glistened as the light bounced off 'em.

"Oh.  Yeah.  Your tendency to have a wayward smacky-paw.  Yup, that gets the peep every time.  You know, if the peep were smart, she'd clip your claws before comin' for your furs.  Maybe next time she'll figure that out, huh?  Maybe next time.  Or on the other paw, maybe not."

MOUSES!

hold still!

Hold still, Peepers.  Hold still!

Uhhh...  Just checkin' somethin'.

I SAID, I'm just checkin' somethin'.  Now hold still.

Hold still, I told you.  Boy-oh-boy, a cat tells a peep to hold still, and what does a peep do?  Pretty much everythin' but.

PEEPERS!  If you're gonna insist on movin' about like that, don't complain to me when...

HOLD STILL!

Lookie here, Peepers, like I said, I'm just checkin' somethin'.

What am I checking, you ask?

Well...

Well I'm checkin' to see if you have whiskers.  So far I haven't found any, but I'm not yet done checkin'.  I still haven't looked at the other side of your face.

HOLD STILL!

Well if you weren't movin' your head about like a spinning top, my claws wouldn't be scratchin' you now, would they.  It's not a question, Peepers.  It's a statement of fact.

HOLD STILL!

I'm tellin' ya, it's like workin' with a bobble head doll or somethin'.

MOUSES!

Hmmm...  Okay, so it looks like you don't have any whiskers.  Actually, that's pretty much the result I was expectin'.  After all, you don't have fur on your arms and legs, either.

Well OF COURSE I've checked your arms and legs for fur.  I check stuff like that out daily.

No it's not.  It's not creepy at all.  If you wanna hear somethin' creepy, yesterday I...

Uhhh...  On second thought, never mind 'bout that.

MOUSES!

Anyway...

So anyway, you're probably wonderin' as to why I was checkin' to see if you have whiskers.  The thing is, Peepers, the other day, I was thinking 'bout how you're supposed to be like my mum, right?  I mean, I don't know my cat mum, so that kinda makes you my mum.  But the thing is...

Well...

WELL WE DON'T LOOK ANYTHIN' ALIKE!

No Peepers, we don't.  For starters, you're not nearly as cute as me.  You're not really cute at all, whereas I, Seville the Cat, am adorable.  But you?  Eh...  Not so much.

Also, there's the fur thing.  Peepers, you're pretty much bald, 'cept for that hair on the top of your head, whereas I, Seville the Cat, have fur all over.

And speakin' of fur, mine is a beautiful and stunning shade of marmalade orange, whereas yours is...

Well yours is whatever colour it says on the bottle of dye.

Which brings me to my next point.  My orange fur is one hundred percent natural, unlike yours.  You know, on account of yours comin' out of a bottle and all.

And now, it seems, you don't have any whiskers, either.  Unlike me.

Then there's the issue of your missing tail.

NO, I did not actually check for a tail.  Now THAT would have been creepy, for sure.

I'm assumin' you are tailless, Peepers, on account of all your complaints when I make comments on my blog 'bout your havin' one.

Plus, if you do have a tail, for all the nine lives of me, I can't figure out where you're puttin' it when you wear pants.

MOUSES!

So basically Peepers, what it comes down to is this:  How the mouses can you be my mum when you clearly belong to a different species?  HOW?

And not just a different species.  An inferior one, too.

A species that is WAY less cute.

And not nearly as smart.

Basically, if our house were a zoo, I, Seville the Cat, would be the zookeeper, whereas you would be the uh...

Well...

Well I'll let you try to figure that one out for yourself.

MOUSES!

I shed you not

Some things in life just aren't fair.  MOUSES!

The other day, someone got into the peep's plants in the sunroom and by someone, I mean a someone with four paws. Yup, someone got right in there and knocked some stuff about.

Boy-oh-boy, the peep was annoyed.  "Who?  What? Why?"  All those words were used although not necessarily in that order and not necessarily alone.  Let's just say they were flavoured with a few mouses.  MOUSES!

"Who in the mouses?  What the mouses?  Why in the mouses?"  Stuff like that, you know?  Like I said, there were a lot of mouses.

Luckily for me, I was in the clear...  this time.  That's right, I was exonerated, to be sure, but this brings me to the what in my life that is so very unfair.

The thing is, I have been told that apparently, when I get into mischief about the house, I have a tendency to leave behind evidence.

Now you might be thinking along the lines of paw prints and stuff like that and to be perfectly honest, at times, that might be correct.  But unfortunately for me, sometimes, the peep doesn't have to get out her paw print identification gear and...

Not that the peep actually has paw print identification gear or anything high-tech like that.  Woman doesn't even have a magnifying glass or working flashlight that I know of.  You see, when it comes to really important investigative work around the house, that kind of stuff is usually left up to me. MOUSES!

Anyway, as I was saying, when the mischief occurred, the peep started sniffing about.

Not that the peep has a good sniffer like a crime-sniffing dog's sniffer or anything like that.  Oh sure, she has a nose.  It's sitting right there in the middle of her face.  Yeah, she has a nose all right but seriously, it's not up to snuff when it comes to sniffing out clues.  Not like mine, which by the way, is not a dog's sniffer at all but rather, a cat's, which is just as good if not better than a dog's, although you have to admit, it is a whole lot cuter.

Perhaps I should mention that we cats aren't as likely as dogs to volunteer for sniffing out crime but it's not because we can't.  It's just because we don't wanna.  MOUSES!

And to be perfectly honest, we cats are more likely to be perpetrating than solving the crimes, if you know what I mean.

And you know what they say.  They say, if you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

Wait a minute.  Maybe that's not the best of sayings to be using for this particular blog post.  MOUSES!

Not that I was doing any crime... THIS TIME.  MOUSES!

Anyway, as I was saying...

What was I saying?

Oh yeah, some plants were knocked about in the sunroom and the peep went straight into investigative mode, such as she can, which isn't all that great but she tried her best anyway.

Well it turned out to be Rushy.  Yup, Rushy did the crime although Rushy did not have to do any time on account of the peep forgiving him and stuff.  MOUSES!

Now you might be thinking that this is what is unfair when it comes to my life.  That my brother Rushton got caught red-pawed, or rather ginger-pawed as he's a marmalade cat, and got away with it.  And that is kind of unfair although I'm sure Rushy would disagree.  But that's not it.  What is really unfair is this.  Rushy got caught because he left a clump of ginger-coloured fur on one of the sticks sticking out, holding up one of the plants he had been knocking about.

No, scratch that.  What is REALLY unfair is that although - this time - Rushy left a clump of ginger-coloured fur as evidence, usually, he does not.  Usually he gets away with his crimes, scot free. MOUSES!

Nah, scratch that, too.  What is REALLY AND TRULY unfair is that when I do the crime, I do have to do the time because I, Seville the Cat, never get away scot free.  That's on account of the evidence I tend to leave behind.

The thing is, I shed.  That's right, I shed you not!  I, Seville the Cat, am a shedder.

Can't help myself, really.  Everywhere I go, I leave behind what we investigative cats call, trace evidence.  Yup, traces of evidence that look suspiciously like ginger-coloured fur.  MOUSES!

Now I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking that if Rushy is ginger-coloured and I'm ginger-coloured, how can the peep tell the ginger-coloured trace evidence fur is mine?  Well the thing is, my ginger fur is short and Rushy's is long and that, my friends, is apparently all it takes.

What's more, although Rushy did leave behind a clump of his fur the other day, that was quite unusual for my brother to do.  Typically, the boy never sheds!  Same thing with Anderson, too. Those long-haired marmies may get their fur tangled up at times, even getting it into mats and stuff, but they almost never, ever shed!  MOUSES!

I, on the other paw, shed like it's going out of style.  I can't brush up against a wall or a piece of furniture or a plant or a peep without shedding and leaving my lovely ginger fur behind.  My gosh, I breath and I shed.  This is why, my friends, the peep always knows where I have been.  MOUSES!

Now this is what is so terribly unfair.  Under normal circumstances, those two long-haired marmie boys can get up to all sorts of hijinks and mischief without ever being caught but I do one little thing that I shouldn't be doing and all mouses break out.

Seriously, I've seen mouses breaking out of their houses and everything.

Of course I mean mice but mice doesn't rhyme with houses so I'm taking some artistic licence and hoping none of you mind.

Anyway, like I was saying...  I CAN'T GET AWAY WITH ANYTHING!  I can't but those two long-haired marmies sure can and that, my friends, is what is so unfair.

Mason has suggested I shave off my fur so as not to leave trace evidence behind but seriously, I am not into that look and besides, it's winter and this is Canada and...

What am I saying?  I don't care what time of year it is or about the weather, shaving my fur is simply not on the agenda.

Bottom line is, I can't help myself and I shed and therefore, get caught doing hijinks and mischief and stuff but those two brothers of mine?  They can get away with anything.  It's simply not fair.  Unfair as unfair can be.  It's...  It's...  It's MOUSES! it is.  Mouses to a tee.