That's No Way to Treat a Houseguest

The other day, one of my friends came over for a visit.  As per usual, Reggie had to come be the welcome-wagon, lifting his buttocks majestically in the air to savor the choicest parts of the required back-scritching ritual.  Wanda and Otto jumped up on the couch and draped themselves proprietorially over my friend, Wanda lounging to her right and Otto plopping happily on her lap.  Even Elroy came by for a visit, rubbing his sweet face on her hands and purring happily.  Human friends are guaranteed a king's or queen's welcome, at least from a few of the Buddies.

Non-human friends...not so much.  The other night, Reggie came bounding delightedly into Sean's office to show him the cricket he had just convinced to part with one of its legs.  This is reminiscent of the times in our house in North Charleston, when Reggie would find a hapless lizard (of which there were many) and go tearing around the house with it in his mouth, making this low-pitched trilling noise that always spelled trouble for the smaller creatures.  Many times, Sean or I were able to rescue the shaken little guy and take him or her outside.  Who knows how many we didn't find?

Earlier this year, I found a tiny little dead mole in the basement.  But Wanda surprised us the most one night not long ago with her hunting prowess.  An unfortunate horsefly had managed to find his way into our house and was flying around our bedroom looking for a way out.  Wanda heard the buzzing immediately and got a bead on him.  She jumped off the bed and went tearing to the wall where he was buzzing around.  She followed him around the room, occasionally jumping partially up the wall to try to grab him.  We braced for the inevitable--Wanda catching the fly and then spending several minutes holding it down and batting it around until she'd had enough of the dead thing and walked away.  

We were astonished when this didn't happen.  Instead, Wanda stretched gracefully up the door frame as the large black horsefly was trying to exit, smacked him once with her tiny, dainty paw, and then stuffed him unceremoniously into her mouth.  A few quick chewing motions and Mr. Horsefly had been shuffled off this mortal coil, compliments of Wanda.  Once Wanda had finished her midnight snack, she came casually back to bed, like she'd just gotten up and had a cookie and a glass of ice-cold milk.  Strangely, I had no desire to eat anything at that point though...