Principal - 2, Kittens - 0

When it was all over, the smell of cordite hanging in the air, the kittens lay in a pool of their own blood, eyes lifeless, and the words of the school principal echoed down the empty corridor, "Nine lives, my ass! Bwa-ha-ha-haaaa!"

I was shocked and saddened to read the following news story:

INDUS, Minnesota — A school principal has resigned and could face felony firearm charges after he shot and killed two orphaned kittens on school property last month.

Wade Pilloud, who resigned as principal of the Indus school, 40 miles west of International Falls, said he shot the kittens to spare them from starving to death after their mother was killed in an animal trap.

Pilloud said the shooting, which occurred on school grounds, endangered no one.

"I have bred cats, and I currently own two myself," he wrote Friday in an e-mail to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "I am not a cat hater. I did not want the animals to suffer."

The incident happened Sept. 21, and several students still on the grounds for after-school activities heard the shots. The school has students from kindergarten to 12th grade — about ages 5 through 18.

"There were parents who felt, apparently some rather strongly, that there were concerns about the safety of their children," said Joseph Flynn, an attorney for the South Koochiching/Rainy River School District. "The district's position is that safety was not compromised."

John Mastin, acting sheriff in Koochiching County, said Pilloud could be charged with felony possession of a firearm on school property and reckless discharge of a firearm, a misdemeanor.

County Attorney Jennifer Hasbargen said Friday that the case was under review.

Mastin said the shooting put no one in danger but said Pilloud used "poor discretion and poor timing," especially amid the growing fear of gun violence in schools.

The district put Pilloud on administrative leave after the incident. Flynn said Pilloud agreed to an undisclosed settlement and resigned.

First off, the story called the kittens "orphaned" because their mother was killed. Don't both parents have to be dead for them to qualify as orphans? Or are we just to assume that these are black kittens?

The story goes on to say that Pilloud shot the kittens to spare them from "starving to death." So apparently they were living in or near the school cafeteria. More than likely, the animal trap the mother was killed by was a giant rat trap set by the cafeteria workers.

The account claims that Pilloud could be charged with felony possession of a firearm on school property and reckless discharge of the weapon, a misdemeanor. I understand, in the current climate in which we live, why even having a firearm in a school would be a felony, but why is shooting one a misdemeanor? Is it, in the eyes of the people who wrote the laws, worse to actually own a gun than to use it? It seems like the second part would be more dangerous. And why are they calling it a "reckless discharge"? He hit the kittens didn't he? That sound like an accurate discharge to me. If the story said he hit a third grader, a dissected frog and "wounded" one of the kittens -- that would be a reckless discharge.

And the thing that cracks me up is this idiot principal who lost his job over this. Did he get up that morning, strap on his side arm and mutter between clenched teeth, "It's me or those kittens today!" Or did he get up, put his gun in his briefcase, like every morning, ready for some snot-nosed third grader to lip off again and the kittens just got in the way? We may never know. I doubt that when he was going to the Frostbite Falls Teachers College he ever thought it would end this way. Unless he was plagued by kittens back then, too.

Finally, I got a kick out of the name of the county. Koochiching. It sounds like the noise a cash register would make in a strip club. Koo-chi-ching! Kittens and strippers.

I hope nobody thinks the strippers are orphaned.