Oh, to be a fly on the wall...

And that's what I had yesterday... a fly on the walls of the kitchen, all day long.. flying from one side of the kitchen to the other for hours on end.  Out came the fly-swatter, but I just couldn't get it.... each time I got within swatting distance of that fly, off he would go to another part of the kitchen.  Even Sweet Pea gave up trying to catch the fly, and if there's one thing that Sweet Pea likes, it's a challenge.  That stupid fly proved to be too much of a contest for the cat.

While I was cooking dinner, the fly was nowhere in sight, so I thought either Sweet Pea had finally caught him or the fly managed to get back outside when we had the back door open. All night long, we didn't see that fly or hear him buzzing... until my husband said he was going upstairs to use his computer.

It was at that point that he decided that a glass of milk and a cookie or two would be nice.  Onto the counter went a cold glass of milk, out came the package of European cookies that we discovered at the supermarket.... and no sooner had my husband opened up the distinctive-sounding cookie package... up on the counter jumped Sweet Pea, who has decided that he likes sharing European cookies with my husband. So there's the two of them... both munching away on cookies... and that's when the fly landed on the counter right behind Sweet Pea.

The fly swatter was in the kitchen, within an arm's length of where my cookie-less self was standing. Without saying a word, and trying not to move too quickly so the fly wouldn't escape.... I grabbed the fly swatter and BAM!! --- the swatter landed right on top of that fly and I got him. Finally.

However... I guess Sweet Pea hadn't ever seen a fly swatter before, nor did he realize that the loud ear-splitting sound behind him was just me hitting a fly with a piece of plastic........ so there went Sweet Pea, at break-neck speed, jumping off the counter, which sent the glass of milk sailing towards the tile floor.

The glass was vintage candlewick, very thin.... which shattered into seven million pieces on the hard tiles... and there was my husband, barefoot, standing in the midst of all that glass. Sweet Pea was nowhere to be seen.... he ran into the TV room and wouldn't come out, scared to the ends of his whiskers from both the sound of the fly swatter and the breaking glass.

While my husband stood there surrounded by the glass shards, I swept them up into a glittering pile of milk-coated molecules... and then got out the vacuum cleaner, just to make sure there were no teeny tiny pieces hiding in the grout lines of the tiles, which of course there were.... we heard them going up into the vacuum cleaner.

When the kitchen was back in order and safe enough for bare feet to walk on, we both went into the TV room looking for Sweet Pea.  The poor cat was on the very top of the cat-tower, eyes wide and petrified, with his chin resting on the carpeted circle of the tower.  "Not your fault, Sweet Pea... you can come back to the kitchen...."   That cat didn't move a muscle... he just sat there staring at us with wild and wide eyes, with not a glimmer of interest in leaving his safe haven of the TV room.

This morning, Sweet Pea slowly tip-toed his paws into the kitchen, probably looking around to see if any red plastic swatters were within my reach.  My husband says Sweet Pea was just searching for the rest of his European cookie.