Lexi - Chapter 6

By Mark Crocker

Mouse - The Other White Meat.

If you don’t know who I am my name is “she who must be obeyed” or if you are human I am called rather laughingly “Lexi May” or just “Lexi”. But if you are human and reading this just call me by my real name which is “she who must be obeyed”.

      My human asked me the other day why I am so picky and finicky about my food. The answer is very simple. But I will get to that in a while.

      The food that my human gets me I like. It's dry food that crunches nicely and makes my teeth nice and clean and I don’t get bad breath.

      Ok so I get morning cat breath when I wake up from a nice long nap. But it’s not as bad as human morning breath.

      For me food is to be eaten so that my tummy is full and I am healthy. It should help my bones to be strong and my fur to shine. It should also help my energy and enable me to bounce and jump high.

      Now I understand that there is other food out there that will fill the tummy but from what I have been told it’s not that tasty. I like the taste of my food that my human gets for me.

      I’ve also been told and from what I have read the food that you humans make for us has things like beef, lamb, fish, white fish and chicken.

      While these taste nice and give off plenty of energy it's not what we would normally eat if we were free and wild.

      As the topic at the start of this monologue states “Mouse -the other white meat” I would like to point out a few things that you humans seem to fail to grasp in your kindness to feed us what you think we want.

      While beef, lamb fish, white fish and chicken is all very nice and I do appreciate the kindness you show me and the other chosen ones. I do have an issue with your choice of meats.

      Let’s go back to what we would eat in the wild.

      Free and wild chosen ones eat a wide variety of food. Not just human food that they find but what we would normally eat if there where no humans around.

      You call the wild and free chosen ones feral which is not a term I like. The only difference between the chosen ones that live with humans and the chosen ones that live free and wild is that they follow the old ways and therefore suffer from all that we chosen ones would normally suffer from without human assistance.

      I honestly don’t know if they are happier free and wild or not. They seem to speak an older language than we chosen ones that live with you humans. True we can still understand each other but it is like humans of the same country but different parts.

      There are other differences between us chosen ones that might seem small and unimportant to you humans but they do show how different wild and free chosen ones are from us chosen ones that live with humans.

      Wild and free chosen ones will eat almost anything they can catch and kill. I don’t know if I could eat a cricket or any other the other bugs that they catch and eat.

      Another difference is that they don’t live as long as we chosen ones that live with humans. But they seem to live more full lives than we chosen ones that live with humans.

      Their lives are filled with excitement and adventure and wild things that I have only dreamed off.

      They have huge hunting areas that cover all kinds of things. Such things as place with wide open ground that is home to all kinds of things such as different kinds of birds, wild rabbits and lots of bugs that I hear are good to eat.

      I’ve also heard that there are bugs that are bad to eat that will make you sick or even kill you.

      Some of those bugs will make you sick or kill you is one that I come across once in awhile when the air gets cold outside and my human turns on the warm air.

      It’s an 8 legged bug.

      Now some of those 8 legged bugs are ok to eat but they don’t taste very good. Or so I have been told. Others are just plain nasty as they have fangs that bite and hurt and make you sick while others will kill you.

      One thing that my human and I agree on is that the 8 legged bugs are just bad news and should be killed on sight.

      I learnt the hard way to leave them alone and now I leave it up to my human to kill them. The one time I did try to kill one of the 8 legged bugs it bit my paw and it hurt. I could not put weight on my paw for like a week and my human was so kind and gentle with me. The only thing he did while I was sick that I did not like was he took me to a man in a white coat that stuck a long thin needle in my shoulder and gave my human white little things that my human forced me to take two times a day for fourteen days. I hated those things and my human was not gentle giving them to me.

      But since then I leave the 8 legged bugs alone or I get my human and he kills them for me and then throws them outside so that the birds can eat them.

      Getting back to the wild and free chosen ones and how they live in the wild.

      I guess they lean quickly that 8 legged bugs are bad news. But they don’t have humans to come along and kill those nasty horrible 8 legged bugs.

      But they do have other things to hunt such as the long eared hopping animal that I hear is really good eating. Then there are mice that really good eating and let's not forget birds.

      I’ve been told that some of the birds get really big and can carry off us chosen ones. I don’t know if I like that.

      There are other dangers to the wild and free chosen ones that I don’t have to deal with and that’s not just the 8 legged bugs.

      There are wild huge dogs that hunt in packs that will chase catch, kill and eat chosen ones. Or as I mentioned huge birds that can hunt kill and eat wild chosen ones.

      Then there is the human transport that wild chosen ones have to watch out for.

      So maybe I should stop dreaming about being wild and free chosen one and look at the facts.

      Wild and free chosen ones have a wider more healthy diet than we chosen ones that live with humans. But on the other hand their lives are shorter because they don’t have humans to help them plus there are things out there that will poison kill and eat the wild and free chosen ones.

      True they do live more in their short lives than we chosen ones that live with humans but we are warm and dry all the time. We don’t go days without food and water and what’s more we have humans to pamper us and brush us and make a fuss of us.

      The whole point of being a chosen one is to be cared for and treated as we should be. After all are we not chosen ones? Are we not the most important and most intelligent life form on this planet?

      So living free and wild is not as good as I think it is. After all if I was wild and free I would not be treated as is my right as one of the chosen ones. And that I would not enjoy at all.

      But the variety of food that the free and wild chosen ones have is something that does bother me.

      Don’t get me wrong I do know how to get by without my human. I do know how to hunt and track smaller animal and I do know how to kill them. And if something did happen to my human I would be able to get by and survive.

      And that’s the issue. I mean surviving. I don’t mean living as living is having someone to be with and to take care of me and in return I give company and friendship and love. No surviving is just getting by and by “just getting by” I mean finding food and water and a safe place to sleep.

      And that’s not living that’s just surviving and who wants to live like that?

      But if push comes to shove or the worse happens I can survive.

      I have talked about in the past my hunting skills and that my human helps me with them by playing games with the red dot thing and the rabbit skin. Hey wait a second that is what those long eared hopper things are called? They are rabbits?

      Now where was I?

      Oh yes just getting by or surviving.

      I do have the skills to survive but seeing as I have a human that I chose I can live the life that we chosen ones are accustom to.

      After all I have a warm place to live and sleep. I have fresh food and water and so many different comfortable places to nap and sun myself that I am blessed.

      The free and wild chosen ones may think they have the better life but I know that I have everything I want. Well almost.

      I would like to spend more time outside. But I understand why my human won’t let me out unless he is with me or if I have on a leash and harness.

      Yes the leash and harness. I will go into that in a few as it is a point on contention that I have with my human.

      Getting back to food for a moment and the free and wild chosen ones and what some kind hearted and good humans do.

      My human told me once that where he use to work there was a family of free and wild chosen ones who were being helped to survive by kind hearted humans.

      While helping free and wild chosen ones is a good thing it can also be bad. The reason is that the free and wild chosen ones live in the now. And if they have plenty of food than means they can have young and having lots of young is a bad thing as they don’t move off when there is plenty of food at hand. And this starts a whole lot of issues.

      One issue is that the more you feed the free and wild chosen ones the more they stay put and have more free and wild chosen ones. Which makes the area overpopulated and that becomes unhealthy as it starts inbreeding and then it’s a downhill spiral of unhealthy young free and wild chosen ones.

      I’m not saying don’t help. What I am saying is only give enough food and water to stop them from starving. That way the free and wild chosen ones won’t starve and over populate the area they are in. As over population is a bad thing.

      Normally free and wild chosen ones will pick an area that has a ready food supply so that they won’t go hungry. But it’s a two way path.

      If there is plenty of food they breed and have young ones. But then as the young ones grow they have to either move away or starve. Now add in kindness of you humans and the young no longer have to move away and they then have young of their own and suddenly you have a problem.

      But when the free and wild first move into an area they have lots of different kinds of food to eat.

      Bugs, rats, long eared hopping rabbits, mice and all kinds and manners of birds and other things to eat which as I have said is very healthy.

      I have often thought about being free and wild but as you have just read I have come to the conclusion that I am happy with my human and I don’t want to be a free and wild chosen one.

      But if it happened that I become one what would I look for as a place to live?

      Well I would look for someplace near humans. I would look for someplace that is warm and dry. I would look for some place that was safe and away from other dangers or somewhere that I could get to quickly to be safe. I would look for someplace where there was plenty of food and water. But I would be sad as I would miss my human.

      I would be so sad that I did not have my human. I think I would cry and howl in my sadness. But I do have my human and I do have a place that meets all my needs.

      Well almost all my needs.

      Now the leash and harness issue.

      As I have said in the past my human lets me out but only on a leash and harness. And to be honest and frank I don’t like it.

      But he has his reasons and lately I have given them a lot of thought.

      It seems to me that my human puts me on a leash and harness for my own safety. Not that I would run off or that I would get into trouble. It’s more that he does that to protect me.

      The leash is very long and I can go far from the door. I can go as far as the bushes and the grass area. But I can’t get to the high wooden thing that surrounds my humans place nor can I get to the tree. But I am ok with as far as I can go.

      Now why is my human protecting me?

      I think it’s because he knows what I could get up to and nothing to do with me running off. And I would never run off.

      But I do like to hunt and chase birds and I can see that if I was on the hunt I might go too far away and get lost. Or I would give chase to a bird or a mouse and who knows where I would end up. I could end up stuck up the tree or under the living place or even next door where other chosen ones live that I am not on good terms with.

      I once snuck out and went around to the place where my human puts his transport and it was scary there. Then I could not get back and I got really scared.

      Then the human that lives with the chosen ones I don’t get on with walked by and he saw me shaking and scared by the opening my human goes in and out through. So he walked up to the opening. And pressed the thing that makes the loud dinging sound and then he walked off.

      I might not like the chosen ones who live in the human habitation next to us but their human is very nice and kind and the few times he has been over to talk with my human he is always very nice to me.

      Anyway as I said he pushed the thing that makes the dinging sound and walked away. A few moments later my human opened up the opening thing and looked around.

      I walked in with my tail held high and said “About time too” and walked by.

      My human looked at me and then at the opening and then at the thing that makes the dinging sound and shook his head in surprise.

      I think my human thinks I pressed the dinging thing and I plan to keep letting him think that.

      Now let’s get back to the very start of this monologue and let’s look at the topic I picked.

      I do like my dry food that crunches when I eat it and it does fill my stomach and once in a while my human will give me what he calls wet food and I like the kind that he now gets for me. But I don’t like it every day. Once in a while is fine by me as well it tastes ok but after a while I can taste the thing it comes in and I don’t like that taste.

      When he got me wet food for the first time it was like a paste and I did not like that at all. Ok so the juices were good but the paste itself was nasty and I did not eat it.

       Next he got me a wet food that was like lumps and again the juices were good but I did not like the lumps.

      Then he got me wet food that was in thin strips with lots of juices and I liked that. But as I said it gets the taste of the thing it comes in after a while and I don’t like that.

      Lastly my human got me wet food that comes in a thing that does not taste too bad. But well, the food is good but it’s missing the taste I want.

      All the wet food I have mentioned comes in flavors that either I don’t like or just don’t taste right.

      As I have said there is Lamb, chicken, beef, fish and white fish and parts of those animals such as liver, heart and giblets. I am still not sure what giblets are or what animal they come from.

      Chicken tastes like something but it also taste like nothing. I don’t understand that. I mean what is this chicken anyway. What kind of animal is it? I should ask my human what this chicken is.

      Now speaking as one of the chosen ones I have a proposal to put to you.

      I have mentioned the flavors that you make for us in wet food and dry food. But it’s not what we really want.

      The free and wild chosen ones have it right you know and they eat the right things in the wild.

      So what I want to start seeing and be able to eat is the other white meat. “Mouse”. And not just mouse. I want rabbit, vole, squirrel, bugs, pigeon, finch, chipmunk, lizard and ground squirrel.
©Mark Crocker

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