"Do you smell something?" the spousal unit asked last night.

Our eyes met. Ruefully we acknowledged it was time to play the home version of Find The Dead Thing.

Oh bliss.

Oh thrills.

And a couple of raptures.

Whenever our cat Zubby catches something he likes to flaunt it in front of us. I'm guessing this is the cat version of "Look at the cool thing that I have that you don't have, neener, neener, neener."

Most summers this happens several times a day in good weather, but he's been much more laid back this year and hasn't been mining the shallow end of the rodent gene pool as vigourously as he has in years past.

The rule is that no dead things are allowed in the house. Even after seven years Zubby is still incredulous that we do not want our house full of his cool dead things. He keeps showing up expectantly with them at the door, waiting for us to see the light, to join him in savouring the worth and beauty of his prowess.

Oddly enough, we remain unappreciative.

Well, as part of his campaign to convince us that we really, really, really should be letting him into the house with his dead things, he's been hanging on the screen of the back porch door with his latest victim du jour in his mouth.

Zubby is not what you would call the most slender of cats and somehow he has managed to pull part of the bottom of the screen out. He's been working on the hole with the single-mindedness of a convict tunnelling out of prison and now has the opening large enough for a cat to get in, even a somewhat chubby cat.

The spousal unit has not been well for the last week. I haven't had the heart to get on his case about fixing the screen, so I've tried to remember to close the inner door before we go to bed at night since night time is when Zubby becomes The Angel of Mousie Death.

From the odour which permeated our livingroom, sometime this weekend I must have forgotten to close the inner door. We KNEW there was at least one dead thing, but there could be more.

Oh bliss.

Oh thrills.

And a couple of raptures.

The spousal unit grabbed one flashlight, I grabbed another. We looked under the two sofas. Nada. We looked under the armchair. Zip. We looked under the coffee table. Zero. Paul's desk. Rien. We looked in the closet. Nope. We figured we had covered all our bases, but no sign of the very aromatic trophy.

Yep, Zubby had stashed his precious dead thing carefully.

"Well, I'm not going to let him bring in anything tonight," I said, closing the inner door. And when I did ... there it was, jammed into the corner behind the door, one very, very icky former rodent.

I immediately made massive gagging sounds of disgust, perturbation and outrage. This, of course, did nothing to correct the situation. The spousal unit, resigned to his fate, went downstairs and got the dust pan to lift up said mass o' ick, along with appropriate cleaning materials to deal with the rodent residue.

Oh yes, there was residue.

Ewwwwwww.

Even you know what? He didn't complain at all. Yep, I'm married to a man who is willing to deal with masses o' ick on my behalf.

If THAT ain't love, I don't know what is.

--Marn