I have lots of sick and disturbing dreams.  Lots and lots of them.  Usually I’ll wake up from them and have to laugh, because I’m not sure how my brain comes up with this stuff when it’s trying to rest.  And other times I’ll wake up completely disturbed, and wondering if there is something truly wrong with me.

Last night I had a dream that our old and befuddled Oscar cat got out (all our cats are indoors cats).  I looked out into the backyard (which wasn’t the backyard we have now, but a huge lawn surrounded by woods), and I saw a bunch of kids torturing Oscar.  Pulling out his fur, poking his eyes… horrible stuff.  But here’s the part of the dream that made me sick to my stomach…. I grabbed a huge hammer off the kitchen counter, ran out into the backyard screaming like a warrior and killed the children, then grabbed Oscar cat and ran with him back into the house.  In my dream, I killed children with a hammer… and not in a cartoony way…  but in a really bad way.  I didn’t like this dream.  I woke up feeling like something in my brain had totally crossed a line, and it really needs to apologize.

So this afternoon, I went into the kitchen to make Sully lunch.  We have big windows and a sliding glass door that lead into our backyard. I glance into the backyard- and there are all the cats…. minus Oscar.  I look at the sliding screen door, and it was off it’s sliding track and lodged open.  I run into the backyard and start swooping up cats.  One after another until they’re all safely back inside… but still no Oscar.  Sully starts searching the house while I search the backyard for him. Nowhere to be found.  Oscar is really old, totally senile (he gets disorientated and confused easily), and has really bad joints so he can’t jump or run anymore.  He’s the one that CANNOT get out because he wouldn’t be able to defend himself.

And then I remember my dream.  And I hear the sounds of the neighborhood kids playing in the culdesac, and I get a little freaked out.  Sully and I are running up and down the street calling for him, I’m repeating over and over in my head “no matter what, don’t get a hammer”.  We eventually find him down the street in a neighbors yard unharmed.  But I found the lost-cat-dream and the lost-cat-a-few-hours-later interesting, and I was glad that horrid neighborhood children being smashed into jelly wasn’t a part of the dream that was played out.

After we got all the guys back inside, we found out how the back door was opened.  It was Daisy.  Our 4 pound tiny cat was repeatedly taking a running start and jumping as hard as she could onto the back screendoor until it got knocked off it’s track.  She’s crazy smart.  I’ll come home to find all my drawers opened and emptied onto the floor, she can open doors and scale anything.  We already had to replace one screen door because she figured out how to pull the screen part of it out and climb through the opening it made.  She’s a crafty little asshole.  And today she organized a prison break.

But senile old Oscar is back at home, safe and sound…. and no children were killed in the process.

And Daisy is under strict supervision.

Old man Oscar and his best friend Sluggo during daily cuddle time

Daisy, the destroyer of everything