Thoracic Park

I am not the only one adjusting to life at a new address. P.K., my beautiful but ill-tempered Abyssinian cat, is also getting used to the change of venue.

My parents have heard tales of P.K. biting and taking claws-out swipes at me and my friends so they were a bit leery about becoming housemates. Mom has been slipping him little pieces of banana as a gesture of goodwill. (Abyssinians tend to eat weird things; mine likes banana, cantaloupe, strawberries, peanuts and French fries).

When I'm home, we let P.K. have supervised visits to other parts of the house. I have to shoo him off the kitchen table and counters occasionally, but he's been fairly well-behaved. There is a reason for this. He's busy hunting.

My parents' house is infested with crickets. Not on purpose, of course, but the little chirpers get in, set up house and make offspring. You just hope you don't encounter one while padding around barefoot. Crickets are notoriously difficult to get rid of. Our Asian neighbors believe it's bad luck to kill them, but after one of the little buggers has kept you awake all night sawing his legs together in an attempt to attract girl crickets, you're willing to trade a little bad luck for some QUIET.

For an indoor-only cat, P.K. has remarkable hunting skills. At my previous apartments, his repertoire was limited to spiders and the occasional pea-brained lizard that got into the house.

P.K. is having a delightful time with the crickets. He doesn't eat them like he does spiders. He'll corner one, trap it under his paws then pick them up in his mouth. Then he'll drop it and repeat until the cricket is no more than a twitching thorax.

I swept up half a dozen legless crickets last night, some still alive and scooting across the hardwood like angry little Lieutenant Dans. I can only imagine the carnage once we let P.K. hunt upstairs.