Ninja Cat on Cockroach Patrol

Learning to live with Palmetto bugs was quite the adjustment.  Was once a time if I spotted one when I was vacationing in the South, I would have to wake someone up to dispatch the critter.  Once, in Mexico, I upturned a wastebasket over one before I alerted my companion, just so it wouldn't scurry into hiding, only to come out again once I was asleep.

My son's cat, Blueberry, who I inherited when he left, was what they call a feral cat, which meant you wanted to be really careful when you picked him up.  We developed a ritual, after dinner, where I sat on the porch, and he hunted cockroaches, for dessert.  Apparently, he enjoyed the crunch.

My cat Molly is a cat of a whole different nature.  For one thing, she has no idea that there is an outdoors.  When I go outside, she assumes I have just vanished, and waits patiently until I reappear.  Happily, she has no clue that anything exists above the height of a chair, and has never attempted to explore the heights of the kitchen table.

She also is clueless about bugs.  Out here in the boonies, they frequently find their way inside, and she is astute in finding them.  But what to do with them once they are found, well, she has yet to figure that out.  If they are airborne, she will keep her eye on them, and will even chase them across a room most likely losing them in the process.  If it is scurrying on the floor, she is quick enough to catch it, but when she gets there, she just half-heartedly swats at it, till it foolishly tries to run away, and then she repeats the routine until either she or the bug lose their zest.

Molly lives in a jacuzzi-sized bathtub in the bathroom adjacent to my bedroom.  Last night, as I was sitting there, I heard a large animal moving quickly, and of course saw that it was a Palmetto bug.  As Groucho might wonder, how it got in my bathtub I'll never know.  But fact is, in its panicked attempt to run up the side, it stupidly flipped itself over.  My cat, ever on the ready, jumped up on the side of the tub and watched it for a minute or so.  Then she leaped in and meandered over to it, saw what needed to be done, swatted at it a couple of times, and flipped it back over on its "feet."  And when it started to move, Molly took off.

Followed was me leaning into the tub, trying to get it to come out of hiding behind the litter.  Then I chose one of the number of books that I had sitting on the side of the tub, and unceremoniously dropped it on the roach.  The book I chose was one about battling cancer, which pretty much describes my feelings about the topic.

Molly, of course, was nowhere to be found.