We are being eaten out of house and home by a swelling population of non-humans that have swarmed our property like locusts in a drought-stricken wheat field.
And today, on a sleepy Sunday afternoon, while most sensible 66-year-olds were rocking in their chairs and fondly remembering the good old days, I was in my car, racing up and down the streets of my town and in and out of shops in a quest for food of every description except anything that I might personally eat myself.
The supply mission began with the purchase of 24 cans of soft food for our two cats who also eat enough kibble to keep five grown horses alive. Then, to another store, where a great big bag of bird seed was bought. It’s like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie now in our backyard when I look to see flocks of every description of winged creature landing on our oversized feeders to gobble down the copious amounts of seed plopped there twice a day.
Then it was off to the bulk food store for peanuts – unsalted, of course – to sprinkle on the tops of the bird food piles for the larger blue jays and grackles to munch on.
All this food, inevitably, doubles as squirrel, rabbit and skunk snacks as none of these imbeciles can read and are unaware that the bag of seed is clearly labelled “bird seed.”
Off to another shop to pick up a small pill bottle full of munchies for the snails that keep the aquarium clean. Fish food stock holding strong at the moment.
And finally, in today’s lineup, a fourth store where I set down $8.93 for a bag of mouse food. If my farmer parents could see me buying food for a mouse, I would be sent to my room without supper every night for a week. Because to them, a mouse WAS food for the many cats that lived in our barns. The idea that their son would someday pay for some fancy fixins for a mouse, would perplex them to no end.
Tomorrow, it’s off to the vet’s for a big bag of dog food and two bags of cat kibble, one kind to keep their teeth clean, the other to make sure they pee straight. The condition of our many barn cats’ chompers and urinaters was never a high priority on the farm, but times change.
If I have any loose change left over, maybe I will pick up a small bag of potato chips for myself on the way home.
Which I will share on the couch with the dog.
©2017 Jim Hagarty
