A Game of Cat and Mouse

As it turns out, there really is a game called cat and mouse; one with a real cat, and a real mouse. 

I know because I witnessed it from my purple couch one afternoon. Outside the bay windows, I watched as my neighbor’s rotund orange house cat darted up and down the street spastically chasing something that looked as frightened as a … oh, wait.

Somewhat fearful of the unfolding massacre I was about to witness, I headed out the door. Camera in hand, I tip-toed closer to the cat-mouse duo. There, on the edge of the road, a mouth-watering feline was cozying up to a wide-eyed, grey rodent. The cat had played with this mouse just long enough to get the mouse to trust it. They even shared a few snout to snout kisses, it seemed.

My instinct was to alert the mouse, “Run! Don’t trust him! He’ll eat you alive! I swear! It’s a trap!” But, then I heard the voice of Sir Darwin, “This, my dear,” the authoritarian, British voice in my head continued, “…is nature at its finest. Survival of the fittest!” At that moment, I wondered if Mr. Darwin had ever been chased across sub-Saharan Africa by a large cat, its fangs piercing Charles in the hind quarters mid-stride. I think not. Master Chuck Darwin, while a voyageur; knew not (at least not from first-hand experience) that from which he postulated.

As it turned out, there was no massacre; at least not one that I witnessed. Perhaps my neighbors had a present waiting at their doorstep later that night, I can’t say for sure. But, from my observations (and my best estimation), it was a playful game of a harmless neighborhood cat playing chase with a common field mouse. The cat endeared itself to the mouse, the mouse responded in kind, and a friendship ensued. It was a game of cat meets mouse, cat likes mouse, mouse trusts cat, mouse likes cat. At least, that's the story I prefer. Which story do you prefer?

Wikipedia:

Cat and mouse, often expressed as cat-and-mouse game, is an English-language idiom dating back to 1675 that means "a contrived action involving constant pursuit, near captures, and repeated escapes."[1] The "cat" is unable to secure a definitive victory over the "mouse", who despite not being able to defeat the cat, is able to avoid capture. In extreme cases, the idiom may imply that the contest is never-ending. The term is derived from the hunting behavior of domestic cats, which often appear to "play" with prey by releasing it after capture. This behavior is due to an instinctive imperative to ensure that the prey is weak enough to be killed without endangering the cat.[2]

In colloquial usage it has often been generalized to mean simply that the advantage constantly shifts between the contestants, leading to an impasse or de facto stalemate.