“You bought a what!”
“Not ‘bought,’ ‘adopted,’ – remember, we’re Americans now.”
“But why. Why now?”
“It’s been on my mind for a while, but this morning – that was the final straw.”
“What happened?”
“Rascal brought another mouse into the house.”
“Again?”
“Yes – but I caught it - so hopefully no babies this time.”
“Well that’s alright then. So why did you buy another cat?”
“Because I didn’t kill the mouse, I let it go in the garden.”
“In the garden?”
“Actually that’s a lie – I threw it over the fence into the empty lot.”
“Like a rickety old wooden fence is a cast iron barrier.”
“Quite.”
“Why didn’t you kill it?”
“You never kill them.”
“True.”
“And anyway, I wasn’t going to kill it in cold blood in front of an audience.”
“Which particular audience?”
“All the children and Nonna.”
“Ah – I can see why you’d want to avoid being type cast as violent annihilator of innocents.”
“Indeed.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you bought another cat.”
“Well Rascal caught it again and brought it back into the house. This time it escaped - upstairs. Took us all morning to track it down and trap it – mayhem, absolute mayhem. I haven’t managed to get one thing done today.”
“And buying another cat is somehow going to increase your efficiency? Did it ever occur to you that now you’ll be chasing double the amount of vermin?”
“Hmm. But this new cat is going to eat them.”
“You know that for a fact?”
“Indubitably. She is a ferocious mouser. It's genetic.”
“Rascal will leave - he’ll be jealous.”
“It’s a female cat.”
“Spade?”
“Yup. Smaller than Rascal, company not competition.”
“I don’t know how you can have such confidence in such inanity.”
“I’m merely quoting your mother.”
“Ah. So…….?”
“She’s absolutely thrilled – Christmas has come early.”
Again.
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