There's been a murder in my house.  Oh, not a BIG murder, so don't go getting too excited.  Still, it is a murder, and as such it's making it rather difficult for me to concentrate on writing the entry I'd planned on writing: "Items Colored Red That I Own."  I can get no further in my list than my office wastebasket,  my wall clock, and one of my two sets of gums before visions of the body I discovered when I awoke come flooding back to spoil the mood.
     Visions of the body of my cat's stuffed lobster toy.

     I really should have been prepared for this discovery.  After all, it was only yesterday afternoon that I had found the little orange crustacean shoved under my china cabinet, almost suffocated by the dust bunnies that live there.  I'd rescued him the minute I saw his black elastic string protruding limply from underneath the cabinet, taking care to clean him up as best I could, then putting him on stuffed animal life support, but the question of how he had come to be in such a predicament I'd carefully put out of my mind.
     Today the question came back with a roar, however, when I entered my laundry room and found his cold, unmoving body half-buried in the litterbox. 
     My cat, Jester, was on the counter as if having a freshly murdered lobster friend in his litterbox was the most normal thing in the world.

     I was rather too embarrassed to interrogate him.  What could he say?  It was his friend.  His litterbox.  He'd been locked up with the deceased all night long.  The deceased had not been buried when I'd left the two alone last night.  No one else had been in the room between then and my discovery of the body.  I simply was not in the mood to hear my cat try to tell me yet again that he'd been out in the back yard practicing his golf swing while yet one more unfortunate incident he "knew nothing about" had been taking place.  And I sure was not in the mood to hear him say that if he had done in Mr. Lobster, it was merely because he'd loved the little crustacean too much.
     Not before I'd had my morning cereal, anyway.

     I know some may think that I should have called the police immediately, but what good would that have done?  They couldn't bring Mr. Lobster back.  Why, they hadn't even been willing to help me search under the couch for him the few times I'd tried to file a Missing Cat Toy report in the past!  What hope was there of getting them to travel clear to the netherworld and help me strike a bargain with Hades for his safe return?  Sure, they've often offered to escort me to the gates of Hades, but that's as far as they'll go.  Well, nuts to that! 
     Fortunately, I have the case of Marie Noe to guide me.  Marie is the 70-year-old woman in Philadelphia who was recently discovered to have killed 8 of her children between 1949 and 1968.  Prosecutors have decided to keep her out of jail so that scientists might study her to find out what makes a person do such things.
     I've decided to study Jess to see what makes a cat do the terrible things they do as well.
     My working hypothesis: They're crazies who should never be trusted with anything.
     Just a sec - I think I hear my hypothesis being confirm right now!
     Nope - that was just Marie providing scientists with more raw data.
     Some researchers have all the luck!

     Fortunately, Mr. Lobster knew he was living on borrowed time and had hired an understudy.  That understudy's stage name is Mr. Lion.
     Mr. Lion was taken out of his bag of a dressing room today and thrust into the limelight after I'd fortified him first with a couple scoops of catnip.  Quite the striking fellow, what with his bright yellow body and stunning orange mane and tail.  Even better: He has an elastic string that still stretches!  Best of all: His lungs aren't full of dust and kitty litter!!
     Of course Jess is scared to death of him.  It would be funny seeing this 17-pound killer cower in front of tiny Mr. Lion and take the long way around the house to avoid him if it weren't so outright hilarious.
     Luckily for Jess, I happen to have been reading the recent Newsweek issue about Hollywood and the 20th century the very first time I saw him fleeing his new friend in abject terror.  Specifically, I was reading about John Travolta and "Saturday Night Fever."  There's even a photo of John in his famous white suit.
     It struck me that white suits have always been special.  Steve Martin used to be famous for his white suit, too.  Lennon is wearing a white suit on the cover of "Abbey Road."  Burl Ives wore a white suit in his role of Big Daddy in "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof."  Colonel Sanders wore a white suit.  And although I personally envision God as having been eased into just a white jacket after heavy sedation, lots of others seem to have concluded He wears a white suit, too.  Clearly, white suits have a way of making their wearers seem special, appealing, even charismatic whatever their other faults may be.
     That's why I thought putting Mr. Lion in a white suit might help Jess get over his fear of him.
     And guess what?  It has!  The minute I finished putting the satiny cummerbund around Mr. Lion's waist, Jess stopped being afraid of him!
     Of course now he's afraid of me instead, but there's nothing I can do about that at the moment, I'm afraid.
     I have a funeral service to plan....