Spitting Feathers

I can’t remember whether my dear departed mother used the phrase ‘spitting feathers’ to express her speechless rage or raging thirst, but it was more literally applicable first thing this morning to our white cat, whom my wife discovered the in the study with a dead bird and a carpet that resembled a girls’ dorm after a pillow fight; I was summoned from my morning ablutions by the not unfamiliar cry of ‘there’s a dead animal down here’ and having confirmed it was not a cat I proceeded to deal with the corpse while my wife hoovered up the forensics.