Maybe I'm just bad at picking pets

Somehow Spike must have caught wind that I was criticizing the dog in Saturday's blog post. (An impressive feat considering I'm pretty sure the cat is close to deaf and, well, as mentioned, she's a cat... which means I'm really sure she can't read. At some point in her nine lives, she's learned to overcome these limitations. She has a remarkable awareness of whether the dog's locked in his kennel, a time she savors by roaming freely without fear of a sudden, unappreciated puppy ambush.) 

So... Spike was in a brave and curious mood Saturday, showing up underfoot as I packed away the Christmas decorations.

My 17-year-old feline, who has been referred to by other members of the house as "the %#$@ cat that will never die," conveniently seems to have forgotten the variety of reasons she should be grateful that we even keep her. For instance, in the photo below, note the foam padding on the basement floor. We don't dare carpet down there because any time Spike wants to get a message to us that she's irritated about something, she has a tendency to miss the litter box. By as much as 30 feet.

Spike also doesn't seem to understand that as a cat, her lone job around here is to catch mice. And so we've been forced to set up mouse traps in the basement.

.

But of course we have to be careful where we set the mouse traps. We don't want to accidentally hurt the cat who can't be bothered to catch mice. Luckily, we've sectioned off parts of the basement, such as a storage area under the stairs, to keep the cat out so she can't use it as her litter box. It's the perfect place to set up mouse traps. We've caught several there. So it all works out kind of nicely, doesn't it?

Until it's time to put away holiday decorations. I was hunched over (just around the corner to the right in the above photo) trying to stack bins filled with Christmas stuff. As I backed around the corner, I caught sight of Spike casually making her way toward the mouse trap.

"Spike, do not..." I started to warn.

But she's deaf, and so she didn't hear me, and continued moving toward the trap...

I had to drop (literally) what I was doing and rushed to stop her before she stuck her nose in the peanut butter bait.

Crack!

Not the mouse trap.

My head.

On the low beam that hangs from the landing on our staircase. 

That got the cat's attention. Spike turned and ran and hid.

Could someone please remind me why I have pets? I used to think they were a good idea. But now I've forgotten the reasons. Must have been caused by hitting my head.