Zubby has a distinctive, almost mournful little trilling ditty he sings when he has a Really Cool Dead Thing to show me. I consider him the B.B. King of the cat world.

(Yes, yes this is another of those insanely tedious Middle-Aged Woman Writing About Her Cat deals and if that isn't enough to get authorities somewhere to just pull the plug on this internet business, I don't know what is.)

So I'm working away in here and off in the distance I can hear the soft strains of the I Got Me A Daid Thang Blues:

I got me a daid thang for ya, momma
A hefty hunk of fast coolin' junk
Ohhhhhhh I got me a daid thang for ya, momma
A hefty hunk of fast coolin' junk
If ya don't come outside
And tickle mah pride
I'm gonna come drag it inside

Since I'm not a big fan of having to frisk the cat for dead things every time he comes to the door, I have learned it's just best to go outside, praise him for his wondrous abilities, and then go back to work. This way he feels affirmed and I don't have a house full of wee corpses. This works for us.

Out the front door I headed and I could see the cat in the dappled sunshine on the driveway. He was staring with rapturous fascination at his latest dead thing. As I got closer I realized I could see movement, so technically his latest dead thing had not yet departed this mortal coil. I steeled myself for the idea that I might be on a rescue mission.

Normally, under the Marquis of Queensbury Rules of Marriage, picking up extremely spitty semi-dead things and setting them free in the woods falls to the spousal unit, but in a pinch I will do it. Silently, under my breath, I cursed the cat for not waiting until the spousal unit was around.

As I got even closer, I realized that the cat had not used his powers on some creature of the rodential ilk, his preferred victim pool.

No, that would be too easy.

THE CAT HAD CAUGHT A FREAKING SNAKE.

Oh, I know that there is a smartypants or two among my three loyal readers, someone who will point out that there are no poisonous snakes in my part of Canada and what the cat and I was looking at was a harmless garter snake and a tiny garter snake, at that.

YOU SHUT UP. IT'S A SNAKE!!!

I know that it's stupidly feeble-minded to be terrified of snakes but I am. That said, I forced myself to look at Zubby's snake. I couldn't see any sign of injury so I decided that it would be wise to pick the snake up and hide it in the woods from him.

All those years of watching Crocodile Hunter re-runs finally paid off. "What would Stevo do?" I asked myself, and the answer was that he'd break off a branch, slide the branch under the snake, and carry said snake on the branch to safety. Well, since I live in the woods, the branch part was a piece of cake.

Getting the branch under the snake, now that turned out to be a whole other kettle of fish. The snake was freaked out by the cat and did not want to know anything about leaving its coiled state on the ground. Every time I started to raise the snake on the stick, the snake would start to writhe and the cat would go mental with joy, assuming that This Was Some Insanely Cool Game We Were Playing With The Best Dead Thing Ever. The cat would try to attack the writhing snake, alternately patting it and trying to bite it. Oh man. Two tries and I could see that if I kept it up, the snake was definitely going to get hurt by the cat.

So I scooped up Zubby and began walking towards the house with him. He immediately glommed on to the idea that I was probably going to shut him up in the house far, far away from The Best Dead Thing Ever and he began to struggle and protest mightily.

The cat is down to about 12 pounds of almost pure muscle now. That silent cursing I had been doing earlier under my breath? It was now completely audible. My Crankymeter had redlined. My mood had gone from Bad to Come One Step Closer And I Will Rip A Limb Off You And Beat You Soundly With It.

Stomping all the way, I got the cat locked in the house. I stood on the front step for a second and mentally girded my loins to go back to my snake wrangling.

Even you know what? The snake was gone. Vamoosed. Amscrayed. Yes, between the time I imprisoned the cat and I returned to the driveway, the snake had slithered to freedom! You cannot imagine my relief and joy.

Slither on, little buddy, slither on.

--Marn

Mileage on the Marnometer: 337.22 miles (542.7 kilometers)
Goal for 2003: 500 miles - 804.5 kilometers