Breakfast with Hyenas
Mornings in my house are a bit like an African segment on the discovery channel. You might recognize this particular scene: Lions peacefully devouring their kill under an acacia tree.
And in the periphery, the scavangers the jackals, they hyenas and the vultures slowly move in to harass the lions.
These opportunists are skilled in the fine art of pestering to the point of the lion being ticked off enough to leave, but not mad enough to consider the scavengers part of its meal.
And here a parallel scene, set in a 1920’s Sears Roebuk house on the north short of Long Island:
My daughter breakfasts alone on schooldays, she’s so good; toasting her English muffin to perfection before she drenches it in butter and honey and carries it gingerly to the table - ready to devour her loot.
As she sinks in at the table Mojo, cat with cattitude en masse swiftly slinks up on the tallest part of the sofa behind the table, Elfin, frenchie who can jump 6x her own height while snatching objects of interest positions herself under the table and lastly Buck, the lanky lab appears. Buck is an undercover agent who while pretending to be really really stupid swiftly applies third degree of hypnosis with his beautiful deep wells of eyes.
As soon as I am out of sight a Mayhem break loose:
Here’s the soundtrack, a mere 15 seconds long - pay attention:
Isabella : “NO, Buck NOOOOOO! STOP BEGGING!!” Isabella: “ELFIN!!!! STOP JUMPING!”
Isabella: MOJO!! Off the Table”
Isabella: “MAMA!!!!!!”
And here the gory details, reader’s discretion advised.
As Isabella raises the muffin to her mouth, Buck plops down an inch from the muffin-less side of her chair and plants a big paw on her lap as he gazes into her eyes. As she turns to push his paw off her lap with her muffin-less hand, Elfin jumps towards her other hand, and snatches the muffin.
In the midst of this mayhem, Mojo jumps down to bat the other half of the muffin off the table, and they all take off to devour their scavenged treat.
Isabella sighs and reaches for the muffin I hand her as she heads out the door to catch the school-bus.
Interesting, this never happens when she has cereal for breakfast; my scavengers are picky, just as I imagine hyenas, jackals and vultures would not bother if zucchini replaced the la carte zebra.
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