Cat Tails: What's for lunch?

Peep woke up hungry. She went to the kitchen and ate a few crunchies and a mouthful of squishy food, but those didn’t satisfy her. Sitting back on her haunches, she considered what exactly she was hungry for. Perhaps a different type of squishy food? Some flavors were better than others, but she didn’t think that was what she wanted. The crunchy food was closer to what she wanted, but the flavor wasn’t quite right. That was odd, because most of the brands of crunchy food tasted pretty much the same, no matter what the box said or what color they were. Peep ate a few more crunchies, just to stave off starvation, and then wandered out onto the deck to think.

She looked around to see if anything outside would give her a clue. Trees, nope. Bushes, nope. LT, definitely not. Grass…maybe. Peep only ate grass when she had a tummy ache, and right now her tummy felt fine, but something about the grass looked good. She checked the yard to see if Fuzzy was lurking anywhere close, and deciding the coast was clear she walked down the steps and ate an exploratory mouthful of grass. Yuck. Grass never had a good taste, and today was no exception. She didn’t want grass.

She stared at the grass and noticed some ants. She stuck out her tongue and licked one off the ground, giving it a test crunch. She’d heard that ants tasted peppery, and wanted to make sure they weren’t too spicy for her. They did have a slightly peppery flavor, but not too strong. Interesting. She licked up a few more but decided that they weren’t what she wanted. Peep also realized that she’d swallowed one without crunching it, and that it was wriggling as it made its way to her stomach. That was an unpleasant sensation.

Peep walked around the yard, examining everything. She considered the cactus plants. She’d never eaten one of those. She walked over and examined the pads and spines. Some spines were long and sharp, others were shorter and almost like hair. She wanted to avoid getting either in her mouth, as she bet they would hurt. There was no way she could take a bite of one of those without being skewered by a spine, so she gave up on a meal of cactus.

A butterfly hovered over a nearby cactus. Peep loved butterflies. They were so beautiful, and sometimes they would play with her, flying ahead or just out of reach. She wasn’t interested in playing chase right now and didn’t want to eat the butterfly. Butterflies didn’t have enough body to make even one good bite and the wings would probably stick to the inside of her mouth. Not appetizing.

As she admired the butterfly, a grasshopper popped up from the grass nearby. Peep loved chasing grasshoppers and loved catching them even more. They were so unpredictable and could jump more than a yard at a time. The best thing was to watch which direction it was going to jump and start running just before it hopped and be lucky enough to be in the right place when it landed to slam a paw down on it.

Over the next five minutes Peep did just that. She watched, ran and smacked, but missed the grasshopper every time. She just hoped the grasshopper had been hopping for a long time and would get tired before she did. She even tried springing when the grasshopper jumped to see if she could land first. Well, she did, but she landed nowhere near the grasshopper. As she turned to figure out where it had gone Peep saw it the air, heading towards her. It landed a few inches from her, and lightning quick she reached out a paw and tagged the grasshopper. It squirmed under her paw, but she held it and then picked it up in her mouth. Interesting.

Satisfied with her catch, Peep headed for the house. Once through the cat door she carefully sat down and lowered her head so that her mouth was just above her paws. She opened her mouth and immediately grabbed the grasshopper with one paw. She examined it as it tried to get loose. Deciding she did want to try eating it, she stunned it with one swift paw strike and stared at it. Okay, she thought, let’s do this.

A few minutes later, Peep sighed happily. She hadn’t known it, but grasshopper was just what she’d wanted. Definitely crunchy, but with a light, green taste.