Possible ways my cat spends his time when I'm not home

• Clipping his own toenails.
• Signing me up for catalogs, magazines and mailing lists.
• Skypeing with his friend and former roommate ("Mousie, I wish you were here so we could watch Pretty Little Liars together." "I know, Harold. Steal a bit of cheese off her plate for me.")
  
• Trying on scarves, practicing his French accent, blowing kisses into the mirror.
  
• Sampling the tea stash (we're low on raspberry... again).
• Meowing into fans so it comes out sounding like meeeeeoooooooooowowowowowowowow.
• Rearranging important yet mundane items (scissors, tape, flashlight, batteries), so they can never be found in emergencies.
  
• Playing hide and seek with himself.
  
• Staring into the sunset, thinking about the futility of life and how lucky he is to never get a sunburn.

Currently, all evidence suggests that he spends his days sleeping, but I'm not entirely convinced. Someone put me on the AARP list and he looks far too amused when the flyers show up in the mail.

Responsibility is disgusting and other woes of adulthood

This morning, I woke up ridiculously early to do laundry. Ridiculously early for me means 7:30. I know most of you get up at the crack of dawn and wah wah wah. If you want to sleep in, work in newspapers.

Anyway, I'm one of those people who take a while to actually wake up, but for some odd reason, I had a bit of a skip in my step today. I put on some coffee, made oatmeal with strawberries and bananas, danced around the kitchen. I even put on Carole King like some 70s hippie lady who lounges barefoot on window seats with her cat. I opened the window and breezes were flowing like it was an easy Sunday morning instead of a tense Tuesday. It's too late, baby, yeah, it's too late. I should have taken that as an omen.

While I drank my coffee, I washed some dishes and left more to soak in the sink. I was going to leave for the laundromat, but I decided to do the responsible thing and wash the rest of the dishes. Like a real adult, I told myself. I mentally patted myself on the back for not being a slacker and oh, don't worry, I paid dearly for this.

I opened the cupboard door to put a plate away and...

A mouse.

A mouse was scurrying across my pantry shelf.

A mouse was scurrying across to the other side of my pantry shelf.

A mouse was scurrying across my pantry shelf and I was screaming and strangling a tea towel.

I grabbed my cell phone and ran into the living room, curling up on the couch with my feet off the floor. I'm not afraid of rodents per say, like bats, snakes, spiders or sloths, but let's just say that my kids will never have a pet mouse no matter how much they beg. I called my dad ("Daaaaaaad, there's a mouuuuuuuse in my apaaaaaartmennnnnnnt."). He suggested using spring loaded traps and I barked out a pure, genuine laugh. I can't even be in the same room as a mouse, so there is not way in heaven or hell am I touching a dead one.

"Hey Andrea," I can practically hear you say. "Don't you have a cat? Where was he?"

My cat was in the living room, hanging out on the back of the couch, absolutely useless.

 

Okay, adorably useless, but still USELESS.

To Harold's credit, he is declawed, so I don't know how much help he would have been (I didn't do it to him, nor did the previous owner).

I'll spare you the details of what went down- no, I didn't kill it, but it got pretty gross. I did have a moment, though, where I really, really, really wished I wasn't dealing with this alone. On any other day, I take a bit of pride in my independence. I've assembled my own furniture, dealt with shitty plumbing, and done other minor repairs around the place. This time, I wished there was a guy around in my life for me to be like, "Hey, Man Friend, if you do this, I will [fill in the blank favor]." But you know, if wishes were fishes, I'd be a mermaid, so the only thing to do is put on a pair of gloves and deal with it. Beyonce and the girls warned me a decade ago: Ladies, it ain't easy bein' independent.

And despite all that, I still got to the laundromat and did two loads of laundry. What. What.