Mickey

I don't know how old Mickey is now, maybe eight or nine. He showed up on my front porch and never left. He's named after Mickey Mouse. I let Audrey name him--she wanted to call him Cinderella but decided that it wasn't a very boyish name.

When Kohl was two or three he tried to trap Mickey in his bedroom but Mickey was a little too quick (but not quite quick enough). Kohl slammed the end of Mickey's tail in his bedroom door and completely de-gloved the last inch and a half of his tail. I was in the bath when Kohl knocked to tell me that "Mickey's bweeding!" I asked why and got this response: "I don' t know, but his tail is in my woom!"

That'll teach me to take too long in the bath.

I hurried and dressed then ran Mickey to the vet with the chunk of tail in a ziploc bag. It couldn't be re-attached, so the vet took off the exposed tail bones on a day that Kohl described as "the wowst day evoo". In the days and years following, Mickey has healed and Kohl has learned to pronounce his R's and L's.