by The Morrigan , November 14, 2005
OK, this is starting to scare me. I’m turning into a cliché – professional single woman with two cats and a freezer full of Lean Cuisine.
I’m considered a marvel at work because I regularly get to the office at 4:45 a.m. My co-workers believe me to be sickeningly devoted to my job (and I am) but going to these levels is not so much an indication of my dedication as it is a sign of my pathetic lack of a life. I’m an insomniac anyway and since the only male mammal I’ve slept with in about a million years is a cat, there seems to be no point to lingering under the duvet.
I had to go to another city recently because they were short-staffed but before I left, I had to take Ivan and Annie to the groomer. I’ve mentioned how furry they both are and despite the fact that it is fundamentally ridiculous to have cats shaved, that is indeed what I did. The fur around the place was unbelievable and since I’m no Martha Stewart, it was either shave the cats or mow the hardwood.
I was using a new groomer this time and at first glance, she’d done a good job.
Imagine two majestic, proud animals with normally glossy and flowing fur reduced to skinned rat clones with big heads and murder in their eyes. This time, when I went to pick them up, the woman who’d done the grooming said that she had cut Ivan „slightly“ but that it was nothing to worry about.
I caught a glimpse of the wound a few hours later. „Slightly“ turned out to be a gash that took 4 staples to close, and one that my vet likened to being stabbed very deeply. I was incensed (and of course, I am suing the arse off them).
The trouble was, I picked them up the day before I had to leave and in addition to having staples, Ivan was also prescribed antibiotics that were supposed to be given orally once a day. Luckily, I have a friend in the building who foolishly agreed to undertake this thankless task so off I went, worrying all the way. I decided not to put the space kitty cone on his head – I knew it would drive him insane.
Have you ever tried to give a cat a pill? With dogs, it’s easy – you just stick it under another dog’s tail. Cats are different. Hissing, yowling and bloodletting are common, as is the surreptitious regurgitating of the pill in inconvenient locations.
I worried all week and when I arrived home, it was to two bald, shivering creatures who plainly were in no mood to forgive this latest indignity. I also discovered that Ivan had picked all the staples out with his teeth. Really, I should have expected no less. I was a bit apprehensive, knowing that there was no way that he was going to let me get away with (a) taking him the groomer in the first place; (b) then to the vet; and (c) leaving them alone for a week.
Sure enough, I discovered the next morning as I was rushing out the door to work that somebody had taken a shit in my brand new shoes – several of them, actually, if tactile sensation was anything to go by – squishy as I slid my foot in and then something rock-like in the toe. The really disturbing part was that it was still warm.
Needless to say, the little bastard was nowhere to be found. As I peeled off my soiled pantyhose and washed my feet (cursing up a storm all the while), I decided that we were even and that I would take no retaliatory action. I always lose. That cat’s pretty fiendish and it’s beginning to worry me that I seem to be utterly unable to outwit him.
But you know what the most ironic thing is?
Even with two shaved pussies, I can’t get a date.
Till next time,
Morrigan
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five to seven