08-04-01 @ 9:44 pm EDT

I've discovered that my rat likes grasshoppers as my hamsters have before. (All except Meatball. They just scared him.) So I got her (him? it?) one yesterday, and went out to look for another today. But I guess it was too late in the evening because I saw only two and they were microscopic. I saw a locust (big-ass grasshopper) go flying across the road like a bird. I can never catch those suckers. Then as I was headed back toward the house to give Katchoo the bad news I saw another one fly over a ways ahead of me and then land. A locust!

I knelt down, knowing I'd never catch it but having to try anyway. I carefully reached out my hand and clamped it over the dusty-gray thing and--CAUGHT it! I can't believe I caught a locust! Scooping it up and holding my hand pressed to my side, I came inside the house.

"WOW, Rat!" I yelled. "I got you a BIG one!!"

Katchoo just stood in there staring at me as always, so I opened the cage and dropped the locust in. It landed beside her and she just stared at me.

"It'll probably kick the RAT'S butt," I murmured to Dad.

"The grasshopper will eat the rat," he said in return.

I looked back down toward the cage and the locust moved a bit, so Katchoo noticed it. She glanced down, reached out and put her paws on it, and a second later was chewing on its head, still looking at me as if to say, "Well, what do you want?"

My eyes must have been goggling. WTF?! She didn't even have to FIGHT the thing, just reached out and pop, she was eating it!! I backed away from the cage. "Holy CRAP!" I exclaimed.

"You have to keep this in mind," Dad said.

"What?" I asked.

"That you've got a killer rat."

After this, somehow I think those teeny grasshoppers will never appease her!! o_O