When you build a new house on Rocky Mountain acreage, you expect wildlife. We got mice. We had so many mice that if we left our shoes on the ground overnight, they’d each be filled with a mouse and a nest by the next morning. What do you do when you have mice? You get cats.

My ex would drive into town and stop at all the Safeway and Albertson stores. Kids with big cardboard boxes and signs saying, “Free Kittens,” weren’t safe. He’d tell them, “Can I take the whole box?” He loaded up the car with several boxes and soon we had 17 cats.

The kids played with them on the property while we worked on the house. The cats did their job with the mice, but they kept disappearing and we couldn’t figure it out. There was nowhere for the cats to go. There was nothing but a creek, a hiking trail, and the Rockies.

We needed to get more cats, but we hesitated until we knew the answer to the cat disappearance question. One night we heard the unmistakable answer: mountain lions. Knowing this information put us in a moral quandary. Do we get more cats? We couldn’t do it. We moved instead.

We left the cats, but not the mice. They liked our kitchen, so we put out traps. I’d be watching a movie and eating popcorn. I’d hear the pop of the spring, put the little critter in a plastic bag then in the garbage outside, wash my hands, and return to my popcorn and movie. We caught twenty-seven of them before we remodeled the kitchen. Neither mice nor rats return after any of my kitchen remodels.

There have been mice or rats in every house I’ve fixed up. Traps work fine for rats (and squirrels, but that’s another story). Cats are better for mice. You don’t even have to get up from your popcorn and movie.

Cheyenneh, my fifteen year-old wild child, wanted to be a Veterinarian. Maybe it was playing all those cats when she was young, living in Montana. Last summer, she got a volunteer job with a Cat Hospital. The Vet career quickly vanished after she realized all a Vet does is neuter, spay, and euthanize cats. We do have one souvenir, though.

Nobody adopts black cats, so Cheyenneh insisted on saving this particular kitten. He fit into her hand when she brought him home. We had two other older female cats at the time and they both refused to do anything but hiss at the little guy. He sat by himself when Cheyenneh was at school, bored and getting fat.

After Christmas, Charlie and I were getting a little soft so we joined a gym. When we came home, Charlie put the black cat on an exercise program, too.

Dylan, the skateboarder kid, rips up so many shoelaces while skateboarding that it’s his email name. Charlie saw these lace pieces and gave them another life. He’d pull a lace across the floor like a snake and have the fat black cat chase it. He’d lift the lace up in the air and get the cat to jump. At first the cat couldn’t jump more than a foot, he was so fat. Now he can jump four to five feet, all the time.

We also have a little bird in a cage four feet off the ground. When we noticed the cat jumping up to scare the crap out of the bird, we decided the cat needed to start visiting the outside world.

The cat struts around the house like a sleek mountain lion. Open the front door and he stares, almost shaking with fear. We put him out anyway and he meows at the door, wanting to get back in. Charlie yells through the door, “Some wild animal you are. Go kill something.”

Charlie likes to watch nature shows, especially programs about big cats. One time we noticed the cat staring at the TV watching the Discovery Channel. He watched the lions and jaguars do what big cats do: hunt zebras, kill snakes, run wild. Our cat stared. I didn’t think cats could even see TV, but that cat sure saw something. After that, he never again meowed by the door.

Of the other two bitchy cats we had, one started peeing on anything we’d fix up. We’d replace a window, she’d pee on the sill. We’d remove carpeting, she’d pee on the underlayment. She peed on everything I primed. Since we adopted the black cat from the cat hospital, we took the pee kitty there in exchange. It was nice to wake up in the morning and not have to follow your nose to your first job before breakfast.

The second bitchy cat ran off as soon as we started leaving the doors open. She never returned and we don’t care. There’s only so much hissing you can take.

It’s a beautiful warm day in Oregon today, so I thought it’s time I opened the new French door in the living room. On the biggest, uninterrupted wall of the house was the ugliest, extremely long, seventies-looking, single-paned window I’d ever seen. Charlie replaced it with a nice bottom-of-the-line Home Depot special. Without a deck, there’s a five-foot drop from the door to the grass below.

The cat hasn’t been through this door and probably didn’t even know it opened. Once I opened it though, Discovery Cat took one look and leapt right down to the grass below. I think it pounced on something but I don’t care. I’m working out.

I notice the cat during my second set of hammer curls. He’s playing with a stick or a caterpillar and I watch for a while. Anything to distract me so I don’t have to think about doing my third set. Then I notice the stick moving.

“Dylan,” I yell. “Come look at the cat.”

He runs down the stairs, taking a break from whatever chat room he’s in, avoiding the Chemistry report he says he’s doing.

“Whoa!” he says. “Is that a snake? It’s like two feet long, at least.” He stares for a really long time.

Anything is a welcome distraction from a Chemistry report, even if that’s not what he’s probably doing. He watches Discovery Cat pawing at the garden snake like it’s Comedy Central. I tell you, the kid is a stoner, except for the getting high part. Unless you can get high off soy milk. He’s had at least three glasses in the past hour.

“Okay, that’s enough fun,” I say, and return to my hammer curls while Dylan returns to his “homework.”

It’s hot today, so I went into the kitchen-ish area and feeling proud of my workout, decided to reward myself with a little lemon squeezed into my glass of water.

Right in the middle of the primer-dripped, Spanish-style Seventies’ burnt orange linoleum is a two-foot long garden snake and the Discovery cat. What do you expect, I thought to myself, when Charlie trains him for months with a shoelace?

The little neighbor kids were playing outside nice and quietly. “Hey you guys, there’s a snake in our kitchen,” I say.

“There’s a what?” the little girl says.

“A snake in my kitchen.”

They run right over. They squat closely and ask about a million questions. The Discovery cat shies away, still keeping an eye on his prize.

The little girl says, “Is it dead?”

“I don’t think so. I’d probably have had a heart attack by now if I were that snake,” I say.

“Our Janitor had a heart attack,” she says.

The little boy starts poking it. “Here,” I say and hand him a chop stick. “Take it outside and show your brother.”

I thought my job as the weird neighbor was through but just then the little girl’s Mom drives up, home from the grocery store.

I hear her say, “What?” I’d better explain why her cute little girl is playing with snakes, so I go outside.

“We had a cat who loved to hunt,” she says. “He caught mice and birds and left them on the front step. I brought the cat inside to keep me company when I had my new baby.

“One time, I was nursing and I happened to look up to see this huge snake slithering across the floor. Luckily, I heard my husband pull up in the driveway. I wasn’t going to take care of it. That’s the last time the cat stayed indoors.“

Her cute little daughter holds the snake by the tail with her bare fingers. I wonder if I’ve accidentally influenced her future career choice.