Kitty Kabob

It is too soon to tell if my booby-trapped garden will keep the cats away. The good news is that the little army of spikes blends well into the mulch and don’t cause themselves to be an eyesore; the bad news is that they blend well into the mulch. What I mean to say is that I was out there re-arranging the skewers in a sparsely pointed area and I speared myself in the flip-flop.

The first night I found myself straining to hear the howl of a cat caught by surprise as I lay in bed. That sounds cruel, I know, but I cannot stress enough how sick I am of cleaning the great outdoor litter box that was once my garden. I didn’t hear anything other than the rain beating upon the pavement and the howl of the wind through the trees.

During the second night I forsook my straining ears with a small amount of guilt at the maniacal laughter that bubbled up in my throat at the thought of a yelping heiny-poked kitty cat. My husband thought I was being cruel and he all of a sudden expressed some concern over the poor feline’s paw pads. I certainly do not condone cruelty to animals (both of our pet cats were once strays); but I also do not sanction cruelty towards people, and I really feel as though these creatures are being unkind to me by defecating on my plants.

There was a little bit of mulch displaced this morning. I didn’t notice any feces, however, and there weren’t large quantities of brightly colored flies buzzing around. As the budget allows, I will continue to fill the space with pretty smelling flowers and small shrubs. I am hoping that this will not only improve the appearance of the bed, but also shrink the amount of space left for the evacuation of bodily fluids by our friendly neighborhood pestilence propagators.