Christina Kelly's It Happened to Me: My Cat Caught a Mouse!

If you found AJPT through the big Sassy conversations happening on IG and Threads, this one's for you! Everyone else, Christina told me to tell you this is a feel good story in these troubled times.

Hi Sassys!

As a gift to all of you, but most especially to you sweet newcomers who recently joined AJPT after sleuthing us out on 90sGirlfriends Instagram or @cecilecukurs Threads conversations about Sassy magazine (OK you didn't - I went into the comments and brazenly told you all to come here):

Today’s highlighted story is by the one and only Christina Kelly, Sassy writer from pre-day one and Sassy integrity upholder until the day it got overtaken by the anti-Sassy forces and started featuring calorie counts and get-a-boyfriend techniques. Christina is the writer whose style has gotten ripped off in other media as much as any I can think of. (By the way, in a draft of this intro I showed to Christina, I listed one screenwriter in particular who was hugely successful taking phrases verbatim from Sassy without crediting and Christina suggested I take that reference here out. That general scenario has probably happened 100 other times while we've worked together.)

Those of you who don't know Christina from Sassy may know her from Jane Magazine, where I also hired her pre-day one, easiest hiring decision ever.

I love Christina. We have basically grown up together. Her writing still gives me the thrill I got when I received via US Postal Service her original cover letter to her resume that she sent me before coming in to interview in my brand new Sassy office. That letter literally made me dance around, as it was so much better than any writing I could have hoped to find – and fundamentally the same way she writes today (literally TODAY! HERE! I’M SO EXCITED!).

She is also always unique. So it's perfect to me that the topic of her It Happened To Me is so different from the majority of dramatic pieces we usually feature in that category. (We love the drama too. Don't ever stop.) In her inimitable way, Christina describes this story as “A way to celebrate the small accomplishments of house and barn cats everywhere, as they labor unrecognized!”

She’s busy right now packing up her amazingly accomplished daughter, also part of this story, but I'm sure will be excited to see your comments and talk to you there whenever she can. So welcome her back and ask her anything or tell her (or me) your favorite Sassy or Jane memories or whether you kept any issues or whatever you want to say, because she did this for you! Let’s all talk about all of it!

I still love you!

Jane

Me with both of the cats, somewhat recently.

By Christina Kelly

It was a quiet evening early in June. My daughter and I were in our separate bedrooms peacefully reading, when I heard my cat Clawed meowing.

A cat meowing may not seem notable to you, but the thing is, Clawed does not meow. She’ll meow in protest if you bring her to the vet, or if you try to pick her up, but that’s about it. Her sister Fang has a very loud meow, and Fangy was reading in bed with me, so this meow was definitely coming from Clawed.

“Violet?” I called to my daughter. “Can you go downstairs and make sure Clawed is ok?” I clearly could not move, since Fang was in my lap.

Violet, who had just graduated college and was home ahead of her move to Colorado for grad school, obliged.

This is Clawed the cat.

“MOM???” she said. “Clawed has a mouse, and I think it’s dead.”

I hastily went downstairs. Clawed, our small 16-year-old princess of a tuxedo cat, loomed threateningly above a tiny brown mouse, which lay on its side quivering. I had never seen a mouse in our house in the 23 years we’ve lived here, probably because they stay away from cats.

“OK,” I said calmly. “It’s half dead. Let me get a broom and dustpan, and I will bring it outside.” By the time I returned from the basement 20 seconds later, the mouse had revived. It was scurrying frantically around the living room. I modeled for Violet how one behaves in such a situation.

I began to scream.