There must be a smorgasbord of mice around here. The cat has been leaving daily presents on the front mat. As I open the front door to go out and get the morning paper, if I don't look where I'm stepping, I might step on a mouse carcass.

Miss Frisky has started a new habit. She deposits the dead mouse on the newest piece of furniture in the house. This morning, in her haste, she caught the mouse and presented it to us proudly. This time, she didn't kill it. She just dropped it, dazed, onto the sofa next to a person who is terrified of mice, dead or alive. That caused quite a stir. Screaming, yelling, climbing on chairs.

All this before seven a.m. The little children, of course, want to get a cage and keep it as a pet. Why not? They've already had frogs, iguanas, toads, lizards, turtles and garter snakes. What happened to simple gold fish? We used to win them at the church carnival tossing ping pong balls into bowls for ten cents a throw. You even got the bowl. If they died, for seventy cents, you could get another new one.

When the iguana died, there went twenty dollars, plus the cost of the hot rock, the aquarium, and all the accessories. I must have been deprived. I was happy with my goldfish.

Marge Holley has been writing all her life and just published her second humor book, Granny's Journal. She published her first book, Have I Ever Told You How Much I Hate People? Written by Two Little Old Ladies With No Friends at age 61. She is the library director in a small town in the Northwest and can be reached at asccm@hotmail.com.