New meaning to "flying off the shelves"...

Fred and Joe are more or less getting along, and despite a few initial growls, things are calming down around here.

I've determined this is what they are thinking:
-- Fred: Stupid spazzball won't leave me alone. Can't you see I just want to lay here and gorge myself on somebody's else's Kitten Chow?
-- Joe: Ooooh! A new friend! And she's got a built-in play toy wagging back and forth on her back end! Play play play play play! Hey, what'd I do? Why are you growling at me?

First stop after picking up Joe on Sunday was an emergency run to Petco for a tiiiiny litter box (she only weighs 1 lb., 6 oz.), a collar, and a bag of Kitten Chow. We were keeping Joe in quarantine until Paul could take her to the vet Monday for tests and vaccinations, but we all crowded in the bathroom Sunday afternoon for initial introductions between Fred and Joe. A moth fluttered by, but Paul and I didn't think anything of it.

Monday after work, we saw another moth. "I think they're coming from the Kitten Chow bag," Paul said. So we decided we'd just stop by Petco to exchange the bag before we went to dinner.

"I think there are moths in our Kitten Chow," Paul told the clerk. She raised an eyebrow and told him to grab another bag so they could open it to check for more moths.

Paul brought a bag back to the counter, and she opened it. The inside was literally a web of moths. It was a hair-standing-on-end kind of moment, seeing moths where you don't expect moths to be. Paul says the experience scarred him.

The clerk sent Paul back for another bag. There were a couple left on the shelf, but something was wrong with them -- the webs were starting to show on the outside of the bag, and the bags were warm.

Eh, forget it, I told Paul. Let's just get a refund and pick up cat food at the grocery store. As the clerk was processing the refund, she told us they had a moth infestation last year, too.

"It started in the wild bird food, then in the big bags of dog food and the cat food. Some of the bags were actually warm to the touch, you know, because of all the activity going on inside them. We lost thousands of dollars of inventory, but we thought we got rid of the moths."

And then she told us about the mice -- not the ones in the cages, but the ones that run around the floors at night.