Our old, fat, over-the-hill twenty-something black Manx cat by name of Max got locked in the garage last night by mistake. His meow was different; I knew something was up.

And as I let him out of the garage this morning, he announced that he had killed the enormous resident rat (definitely not a mouse).

Not only killed it but ingested half of it.

Who would have thought him still capable of it? Maybe he was afraid the rat would have him for breakfast, rather than the other way round.

My first thought was not something like, "The circle of life and death..." My first thought was, "Yuck. All the blood and guts...where's the rest of the rat?" Double yuck.

Later, after I've had some coffee, I go and bleach out the blood stains.