Selfish Cat and Burning Rats

My mom and dad came to live with me shortly after my dad's stroke left him an invalid. During this time my mom started to feed the stray cats that hang around the back of my row house. After my Dad died of a heart attack, my mom had a stroke of her own. It left her wheelchair bound. At this point, my mom insisted that I continue to feed the stray cats.

Of the five or six stray cats that come by for food, three are always there consistently. One of these three started to really irritate me. She's constantly chasing off the other cats even though I pour out enough cat food for the entire neighborhood. So I poured out the cat food in separate piles hoping that she would be satisfied with her own pile. Instead, she guarded all the piles, jealously.

Each time she starts to chase other cats away, I'd firmly said, "NO!"

She would respond by stopping to chase the other cats and starting to eat from her pile.

But as soon as I closed the door, she started to try to chase the other cats away again.

This went on for a while and I tolerated it; they are just stupid stray cats.

Then, I cracked! I yelled at the cat, "Why do you have to be so selfish!" (Like she'd understand what I was saying).

Amazingly, she stop doing it.

Then, the next day, early in the morning, I heard loud meowing.

When I opened the back door, there was the selfish cat and at her feet was a large pile of dead rats.

It was pretty disgusting but it must be her attempt at some sort of peace offering.

Since I didn't know if any of the dead rats had rabies, I ended up burning their carcasses.

It must have been a bizarre sight for my neighbors. I wanted to knock on each of their doors and tell them that there's a perfectly logical explanation for what I was doing.

But, when I thought about it... the whole situation was pretty absurd: a selfish cat offering up a pile of dead rats to appease me for her offense...

...then again, I kind of do the same thing with God; doing something selfish that I know is wrong until the consequences of my action catch up with me. At which point, I make some kind of ridiculous gesture to God that He finds relatively meaningless and probably offensive.