What is IT?

I got an email today that said a homeowner in Maryland came home to find these two on her couch. It seems that the fawn followed the beagle in through the doggie door. How cool to find such a cutie on your couch!

It reminded me of what happened at our house, years ago when we lived in Englewood. We didn't have a dog door, we had a cat door. Actually two cat doors, one from the house into the garage and one from the garage to the outside. We had two cats, Punky and Ma. Ma was a stray calico we found in Orlando when we lived there. Punky was an 18 lb orange tabby. One night one of them caught something and brought it in our cat door. The first time it happened was one of the scariest expericences of my life.

There must have been a noise. A squeak, a thump....something unusual. Otherwise, how would I have opened my eyes, from a deep sleep, when I did? All I know is that when I opened them a small black creature was moving quickly towards my bed. A creature that did not move like a cat. I instantly knew that, whatever it was, it did not belong in my house. The only sound from this thing was the sinister click of claws on the terrazzo floor. Now, I'm typically not one to panic. I like animals. I'll hold just about any of them. So it still puzzles me to this day why my reaction was so extreme. Maybe because I was only half awake? Anyway, I lost it! Completely lost it! I went from horizontal to vertical in one move. I found myself standing up in bed shrieking. As you can imagine, this quickly got Robbie's attention. He assumed, as anyone would, that someONE must be in the house. Why else would I be acting this way, right? I'm screaming, "It's...........it's............it's............" but I don't know how to finish my sentence because I didn't know what IT is. But it was evil, of that I was sure. I suspected the devil himself had slipped in, in the form of a round dark blob with long toenails. I had just thwarted it's plans to attack us while we slept! I was not acquainted with reality at this point in time. So Robbie has sprung out of bed and is screaming, "GET OUT! GET. OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" This was even worse because now his feet were on the floor. That terrified me because IT was on the floor too! I can remember thinking that he was going to get shorter and shorter as this thing attacked him at foot level.

Have you ever seen a cartoon character get scared? Have you noticed how his eyes bulge and his lips curl back? I cannot attest to the eyes bulging but I can tell you that the lip thing is a real, physical response to extreme fright. My lips literally curled backwards towards my face! I can still remember how strange that sensation was.

I know I need to let Robbie know that there isn't a person in our house - that whatever it was was worse! But all I can think to say is, "No! It's.......it's.....it's...." I was being really helpful and informative. He runs for the light switch on the other side of the room. I was relieved because now he was further from IT and wasn't in as much danger of having his feet gnawed off. At this point I even had to wonder, did I see anything at all? IT wasn't really doing much. But I didn't have to wait long. As soon as the light came on, IT sprang into action. IT was a rather large rabbit. The poor creature had been dragged by the neck through two cat doors. He had a cut on his neck because, in his panic, he would run into the wall and blood would spray onto the wall.

At least we now knew what we were dealing with. And, thankfully, it wasn't the devil. Robbie screamed for me to grab a towel. And because I no longer feared having my feet gnawed off I got down and grabbed one. Robbie threw it over the rabbit and ran him outside. Problem solved, just like that! Not that I slept a wink for the rest of the night, but at least IT was gone.

Oh, I did do one more thing that night. I got MAD. Mad at those cats. I caught Punky by the front door. It was about 3:15am and I was in my gown. I was standing outside on the lawn at 3:15am beating my cat! It was not my finest moment.

Later on, after catching birds, midair, in my dining room, we realized that it wasn't Punky after all. It was Ma who brought all those creatures in. Sorry Punky!