"I'm getting April a cat for Christmas!" Mikey declared with his show of hands protruding the air and entering the room with such a presence that any and all conversations happening blasted through the Lair walls.
Or that's how Mikey imagined it, anyways.
"I'm getting her an entire box of cats for Christmas!"
His family had expressions of doom on their faces. The world according to Mikey: get the biggest, most random present in the world and make it seem like nobody else has ever thought of it.
Raphael humored his brother. "You think April wants a box of cats? She has already enough pets clamoring around her place."
"And prize winning fish," Leo added, testing new batteries in the television remote. When the remote didn't work, he knocked it gently on the coffee table. Donatello, tinkering with a hand-held music player, gave Leo and his remote control ritual a bothered look.
"She told me she always wanted a kitty. A Siamese cat or something," Mikey mumbled and checked his wallet. Moths flew out of it. "Raph, loan me fifty dollars."
"Fifty dollars? For a box of kittens?" Raph choked, his voice whirling in the Lair.
Mikey stuck out his hand at Raphael, expecting payment. "You hit a truck full of kittens the other day so this is your retribution!"
Leo dropped the remote and Don sighed at the coming storm.
"April don't want no scrawny felines, Mikey! Not a damn box full of 'im. And I didn't hit that truck. IT HIT ME!" Raph roared and he could feel Leo's glare drilling into his shell. Raph was now on his feet and inches away from Mike's face.
Donatello had to stop the madness. Hacking the music player had to wait a little longer.
"Mikey, I would have to agree with Raph here..."
Raph breathed a sigh of relief. "Donny! You believe me, right?"
Don shook his head. "That April doesn't need a box of kittens."
"That I didn't hit the truck!" Raph's eyes popped out of his skull. "I didn't kill no kittens!"
"Look," Don said, removing his goggles, "it's scientifically proven that the more cats a woman has, the less fertile she will be."
And that's when Donatello's family thought he really hit the bottom. Splinter had just entered the room, stopped when he heard what Don said, and walked out of the conversation. He suddenly needed to use the bathroom... again.
"I still didn't kill no kittens," Raph gritted through his teeth and retrieved his spot on the armchair.
Leo picked up the remote. "Uh, Don, could you.. enlighten us?"
"How could having a few Sparkies and Cleos around the house keep April from having a baby?" Mikey dropped his hand and focused on Don; Mikey's eyes were the size of golf balls and sparkling like a exploding star.
Don started again, "Since you're not looking at me like I just hit a truck full of kittens -"
"HEY!" Raph retorted and shook his fist.
"- I'll explain." Donatello got ready to use his hands for demonstration. "A twenty-year study concluded there was a definite correlation between the number of cats and the number of children in a woman's household. The two are directly inversely proportional."
Leo looked at his two confused brothers across the room and then back to Don, who was sitting beside him on the couch. Leo spoke slowly for the Mentally Impaired, "In other words, if a woman has more cats, the less likely she has any children?"
"Correct." Don paused and pointed at Mikey. "So don't get the damn box of kittens because that's a stupid idea and April won't be able to punch out any kids."
"Dude!" Mikey squirmed in his spot, "So does the smell of a cat drive men away?"
"I don't like cat piss smell," came a low rumble from Raph's form. "And I don't like Mikey smell either."
"KITTEN KILLER!" Leo and Mikey cried. Raphael had nothing to say after that and felt the weight of a hundred kittens' deaths on his shoulders.
Mikey was downhearted by the news. "I'm glad I'm not a woman. I love cats and I love babies. It sucks to be a girl."
Leo noticed Don grinning and rolled his eyes. Don had that same grin from all of the other times he was messing with people's heads.
Mikey wasn't even paying attention. "Do you think I should send April a get well soon card when I send her the box of kittens?"
Don knew this was getting good. "Here's a tip, Mikey: getting rid of the cats before menopause will reverse the problem."
"When does menopause happen again? Age 35?" Mikey looked at Raph, who shrugged. "Having a cat is better than a condom, then?"
Don and Raph thundered with sudden laughter, giving Mikey a step back, and Leo just shook his head at the chaos. The two couldn't answer Mikey's remaining questions about cats disrupting 'play time' in the bedroom. His brothers had no idea that Mikey knew so much about reproduction.
"Why are you laughing, Puss Butcher?" Mikey swung his closest leg and aimed it for Raph's guffawing mouth. It missed and didn't shut Raphael up.
Leo, the mood killer, stepped into the circle of delirium. "Mikey, Don is messing with your head."
Mikey's entire world crashed before him, and his heart shattered on the floor. Don gathered his senses and wiped his eyes. "Yeah, it's baloney, Mikey. I was just piss-balling around with your mind."
"Good one, Bro," Raph snorted and gave the cheekiest grin in Mikey's direction.
But Michelangelo, Earth's defender of Kittens and Goodwill to All Women, could have obliterated his brothers in the Lair. Life wasn't fair. Life was very dirty, very mean. But it didn't kill his idea of giving April his glorious Present of Presents and he whisked out of the room, smiling like a deranged person.
Don couldn't wait to tell Mikey that an ingredient in ramen noodles was just added to the periodic table. That would be for tomorrow's lesson.