Benjamin's Latest Prey

Benjamin's Latest Prey
Yesterday, David, Deva and I were getting ready to leave the house and go to Vashon Island, just for a nice day trip off the "mainland." I was heading back to my desk to print directions to an address, and behind a low box, I saw Benjamin batting & chasing something. Deva saw it too. We watched. David came into the family room a moment later (where my desk is) and we all watched for a few moments as Benjamin hopped, batted and stalked whatever it was that was hiding behind the box. I envisioned what sort of mouse it must be that would stay behind a box (not a bird obviously or it would probably be flying), not a lizard hopefully, they're so crafty and they can die in a corner and you smell them before you know where they are, but geez, a mouse can be tricky to usher out of the house alive and geez there are too many hidey holes for a mouse inside our house, if one should manage to get in. Benjamin continued to bat, hop, scamper and tease it, presumably trying to tease it out of its hiding place so he'd have the chance to give it a full-on chase across the floor.
No such luck. In the next move, he reached in and grabbed it in his teeth, and came out from behind the box, shaking it in his teeth; a black and red pen. Yes, a pen. Benjamin stalks pens. Then he bats and chides them till they roll over and play dead, then just when they move again he puts them out of their misery, picks them up in his teeth and runs off to carry off his treasure into the other room.

If you leave a pen lying around somewhere in our house (in other words on any surface) not in an enclosed cabinet, it might not be where you left it. Benjamin might hunt it down and carry it off somewhere else. Phew! At least they don't smell when they lose their last breath...and they usually don't make it as far as under the stairs.