Pets

Much as I love cats, I know that they are killing machines that play with their food. It's one thing to see a pet or feral cat behaving like its wild ancestors, but something else to know that, with a wild cat, you would be on the plaything menu.

Many years ago my husband and I were having a quiet evening at home, each of us reading something. Our cat discovered a grasshopper that had somehow slipped inside, maybe via a screen or on our clothing. We first noticed it when the cat was in stalking mode. The grasshopper got very still, maybe a playing dead defense? The cat nudged it until it jumped, then swatted it down, but not hard enough to squish it.

This went on for several minutes. Nudge, block movement, release. Just as I turned to my husband and said that we should rescue the grasshopper, there was a crunching sound. When I looked at the cat, there was a grasshopper leg dangling from his mouth.