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25 April 2007

Bepo

We have a fourth member of our family- our cat Bepo. Who, I must admit, I love, just not all of the time. For those of you who don't know, we live in the no-man's land between Greensboro and Pleasant Garden. This means we just belong to Guilford County, so we have well water and the like because we are not part of the city, despite the city being about a mile away. Because we don't have city water, the growth that has been occuring on the other side of the highway stops there (like we have some disease) and despite the fact that there is a full-blown shopping center right around the corner, our neck of the woods is still pretty country. Having grown up in the city, I was unprepared for some asapects of country life after getting married and moving into our lovely home. Everything was fine, and then after a few months of wedded bliss we got some company- very unwelcome company. With the change in temperature towards the cold side of things, some friendly field mice decided to take up residence in our house. And these friendly field mice were not very tidy and Jackie, being the neat freak she is, was not very happy. So Rob and Jackie conjured up the perfect solution: a cat! Not only would it be able to evict the mice, Jackie would be able to bestow her endless affection on something other than Rob. So off to the shelter we went and found the cutest little grey kitten you could imagine. And envisioning the great hunter he would someday become, he was christened Bepo Pelepo Benito, after Rob's butcher in Italy and the people butcher Benito Mussolini. It took a few weeks for Bepo to get the hang of his new duties, but once he did, life has never been the same. The first occasion Bepo butchered something, it was a field mouse. He was still a little kitten, and had a habit of wanting to play in the middle of the night. On this occasion, he was in my face in the middle of the night, and wouldn't let up. So I finally woke myself up enough to figure out what he wanted, only to realize there was a dead mouse on my arm. Bepo had done his job and was SO excited and me, being his favorite person, decided his first mouse would be a gift to me. Much to my regret, I was not very grateful, and Rob had to takecare of it and reward Bepo. And life since has been full of similar instances, like when he brought a lizard into the house, who ended up being still alive, and in the ensuing chase left his tail behind, and I found it a few days later cleaning up. My favorite stories, however, involve birds. The first time Bepo brought a bird inside, it was still alive. I have heard that pets that hunt are trying to teach us to hunt, so they start off bringing us dead animals, and then after awhile start bringing live animals so that we can finish them off ourselves and gradually get to the point where we can kill our own animals. So, I was in the bedroom folding laundry when Bepo comes prancing in, and ploops a bird down. I freak out, and the bird takes off, with Bepo chasing it, and they're everywhere and feathers are everywhere and I'm screaming and chasing them and then they finally leave the bedroom and I just shut the door after them so they would leave me alone. After the fact, I realized that was probably not the best idea as Bepo would probably kill the thing and I would find a bird carcass behind the couch or something. But to this day, all I ever found were some feathers. The other bird occasion happened this week. After an exhausting day at school and work, Rob, Max, and I arrive home and I settle on the couch to feed the screaming baby. Bepo also happened to come in with us, but in the bustle of getting everyone and eveything in the house we didn't pay any attention to him. Then Rob and I hear some rustling behing the curtain and realize there is a bird in the house. Rob then tries to get the thing to move towards the door, but it just flies around the ceiling. I'm helpless as I'm stuck underneath the bottomless pit, when the bird decides to land on the couch behind me. Then Bepo re-enters the room and spies the bird and lunges, and the chase begins right behind my head, with feathers flying. The bird is being chased by Bepo, Rob is chasing Bepo, and I'm screaming at both from my position on the couch and Max is oblivious to it all as he feasts. Finally, Rob is able to pin the cat and whisk the bird out the door and then life resumes normality. The killer himself.


7 comments:

  1. But Bepo the killer is so cute... after reading this I am even more glad that Maggie is an indoor only cat. I had a cat that looked almost exactly like Bepo growing up, and she was an indoor/outdoor cat. She would always bring her "kill" indoors for us to find. Since we lived in Orlando, her kill was always lizards. My mom tried to put a collar with a bell on her to alert the birds that she was coming, but she would never keep it on. She would come home with the collar off. This was before the days of break-away collars, and my mom was always afraid she was going to end up hanging herself, so away went the collar and of course we ended up finding some birds around too! I loved reading this story - you are such a good story teller!

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  2. This story totally just made my day! Hilarious! I can just picture you stuck on the couch with Max as all this chaos takes place around you. Too funny. I have heard stories about cats bringing home snakes...so be careful. That would totally freak me out!

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  4. So, you should totally compile some short stories and call them The Adventures of Bebo the Cat! You are such a good story teller. You had me laughing the entire time:)

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  5. I could totally picture this as a scene in a comedy film. You guys should make a journal of experiences like these and write a screenplay when you have collected enough. It would be a hit! Thanks for the laugh. :)

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  6. You would never think that such an innocent looking cat could be such a killer! : ) Great stories, I really enjoyed them.

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  7. We had a couple birds get into our apartment! You don't think that one would be scared of a bird but they are pretty freaky when they are flying around in your bedroom. We usually just waited til dark and turned of all the lights except lights that would "lead" it to the front door and then just wait...but we did have some very exciting bird hunts too!!

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