Kaya is certainly fullfilling her mission to search and destroy the rats around here.

Yestermorning, very early, the bedroom door opened(she's quite good at that) and I heard small fussy noises. I sat bolt up in bed saying:

"Kaya's got something again!"

"Wha..?" Daniel, groggy and surprised. "How do you know?"

But it became obvious pretty quickly that Kaya did indeed have a little rat as she proceeded to toss it about joyously. It was still very much alive and kept running away from her.

Not wanting to witness Kayas favorite little cat game, the brutally playful demise of a small creature about to be shaken, bitten and beaten to death, I found a paper bag and looked about for something to grab the wee beastie with while Daniel, like the tenderhearted buddhist he is, shooed Kaya away. The rat ran under the enormous pile of dirty laundry that currently adorns our bedroom floor(see mom, I REALLY am trying to relax and not do too much housework).

I looked at Daniel-I guess it must have been one of those raised eyebrow, 'now what are we supposed to do?' looks...

"I guess I should have let her catch it first" He said, a mite sheepishly.

"Yeah." I agreed, gingerly lifting up bits of laundry, half expecting the rat to be clinging to each one as I tossed it on the bed. I got to the bottom of the pile and saw that unmistakably rattie tail disappear under the bed.

"I think we better let her get it out from under there..."

Kaya promptly set to work, but her prey skittered under the dresser, I pulled the dresser out, but the frightened critter was already gone.

The only place it could have gone was under my heap of clothes in the closet. THIS heap is clean and nicely folded. It's my overflow-have I ever mentioned I have far too many clothes?

Anyhoo, I decided I'd have to deal with this myself. I put two socks on my right hand, paper bag ready in my left and proceeded to lift the pile of clothes. There was rattie, pushing itself as far into the back of the pile as possible. I took a deep breath, hoped those nasty little rat teeth weren't long enough to penetrate two thick woolen socks, and grabbed the lil sucker. It didn't even try to bite, it clung to the laundry, desperately trying to scramble away from me, all four legs kicking. It looked so scared I felt sorry for it and plopped it gently into the bag, wadded the top and took it out to the backyard.

It took a few good shakes of the bag to get it out. Poor thing was clinging to the inside of the bag pretty fiercely. Then it took about three super large hops and crawled off into the tall grass.

I bet it will tell its grandratties about the day it bravely fought the great and terrible deathcat, was swallowed by a sock-handed bagmonster, and then got spat out again. Hopefully this will impress its descendants so much that no rat will dare enter the dreadkitties lair again.

Daniel was pretty proud of me, but Kaya was just nosing about confusedly in the closet.

Poor thing, we always ruin her proudkitty moments.