There is no such thing as a free cat. These have been my husband's exact words more than once in our married life. The latest feline, Kat Karson, came to us from the local shelter. A big, social cat who liked to be near but not on people. He has lived with us for a year or more.

Two weeks ago we found him, unusual for him, starring fixedly at the bottom of the stove. Day after day he would lay and stare, unblinking and alert. Once a break in routine found him in the front hallway, fixedly staring at the closet door.

We assumed, but what did we know, that he had heard (cat's hearing is legendary) a mouse.

Sometimes he was so transfixed on the oven door that he wouldn't come when called for treats. That's when I knew he was on to something big.

Today the Great Cat Hunter captured a rodent.

The noise of both the mouse and the feline brought my husband out of his den to see what the ruckus was all about. In the hallway he discovered Kat Karson starring down and mewing at a mouse who was laying on his back scratching and pawing the air...I'll save you the description of his injuries. Kat Karson seemed to be waiting for the rodent to right himself from his Topsy-turvy position and continue the game they had started which apparently involved teeth, claws and internal injuries.

My husband took in the scene and sprang into action, picking up the injured animal (this is not an endangered species so no need to call animal control), taking him outside and tossing him over the back fence into the neighbor's wooded empty lot.

The family is very proud of Kat Karson. We are a cat family, but I do not remember an incident of any other cat having performed this feat. For Kat Karson's part, he is still wandering about the house, wondering what happened to his little playmate.

I, for one, am glad that I do not have to obsess, anymore, over the possibility of the rodent getting baked into Thanksgiving Dinner or my entering the kitchen to find tiny little foot prints through the icing on a cake or the corner chewed out of the oatmeal box in the cupboard.

No such thing as a free cat? They can be worth their Meow Mix in dead or disabled rodents.

And that's what I think about it.