Underdogs

This story is true. It was told to me by a friend. She and her husband were both witnesses to the event. I personally know them to be trustworthy and believable. I want to make sure this point is perfectly clear before I tell the story.
It happened on a beautiful fall afternoon. While sitting in their living room watching a glorious sunset, they noticed their big, black cat walking slowly to the sliding glass door. It dropped what appeared to be a dead mouse on to the patio. The cat stretched out lazily beside the tiny mound of gray fur.
Within a few seconds, they realized that it was a mouse but it was anything but dead. It jumped up, turned to face the cat and stood on its hind legs. Its arms were boxing towards the cat’s nose in a “want a piece of me?” type move. The cat and couple all stared unsure of what they were seeing!
The tiny mouse jumped at the cat’s head in an attempt to bite. Due to the amount of hair on the cat’s face, the mouse was unable to penetrate the skin. It slid down the cat’s face and upon landing assumed its boxing stance again, pummeling the air with its fists.
By now, the cat wisely chose to walk away. The mouse watched until the cat had turned around the corner of the house. Only then did it run away with its tail raised in triumph.
We love underdogs. They can be teams, countries, people or racehorses. They can even come in the form of a small rodent. I’ve thought about why we feel this way. One reason is probably because at one time or another we have thought ourselves to be an underdog. Most of us have taken on something that was bigger than us maybe a job, a new family, an illness. Challenges come in many different shapes.
We admire the courage it takes to fight any battle but it takes a different kind of courage to fight when we know we are already licked. Those are the stories we love to hear about, people who took on the system or cancer or addiction or abusive backgrounds, etc. We want to know that the impossible IS possible.
And sometimes it is- Cinderella went to the ball, Secretariat won the triple crown, David beat Goliath, and a small mouse took on the cat and lived.
That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?