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| I can haz tongue, says Buddy Batcat |
Anatole France would be pleased.
A part of my soul has finally been awakened after falling head over heels in love with six lbs worth of aging cat. At 36, I finally became a pet parent - a term I would have previously scoffed at had I even known it existed - and my heart grew all fuzzy.
Enter one plucky moggy known as Buddy Batcat and the digestive glitches befitting his age.
"You might occasionally hear something that sounds like a baby crying", warned my beloved when I arrived in December, "so don't be alarmed if I dart out of bed - that'll be the cat warning us he's about to throw up".
Little did I know that I would soon come to recognize - and fear - that distinctive meow.
Loath to manhandle a cat I had just met and unsure of his clawing capacities, it took me a while until I found a way to carry him and prevent him from Jackson Pollocking the entire apartment. In the cat's eyes however, I was still staff-in-training back then, wielding a bottle of anti-bacterial cleaning spray in one hand, a huge roll of kitchen towels in the other and meowing madly in a bid to communicate.
Because I naturally have all the makings of a crazy cat lady.
At least the vet thought so. When we took the cat in for his rabies shot, she spoke exclusively to me and blanked the cat's human life partner - aka my beloved - altogether in some surreal sales pitch that had little to do with actual animal care. Her robotic delivery was rather chilling and I might have liked her better had she meowed, too.
Vet visit aside, I quickly became a dab hand at picking up our feline overlord and holding him over the toilet while he plays some loud belly accordion gigs, usually in two parts with a lip-smacking finish.
"Waaaah-waaaah-waaaah-waaaah-waaaaah, waaaah-waaaah-waaaah-waaaah-waaaaah, ooh-WOOOP, ooh-WOOOP, ooh-WOOOP... SPLOSH! Waaaah-waaaah-waaaah-waaaah-waaaaah, waaaah-waaaah-waaaah-waaaah-waaaaah, ooh-WOOOP, ooh-WOOOP, ooh-WOOOP. SPLOSH! Nyooom, nyooom, NYAAAP".
Sound effects both the beloved and I can recreate at will. Try us.
Monitoring the contents of the cat's litter box became second nature to me, too, and terms like "chocolate log", "truffle" and "nugget" have all been reclaimed to mean entirely different things.
Truth is, in this household, we measure peace of mind by what comes out of the cat's backside.
Unless of course the cat is backed up, which happens on a regular basis. Or producing something out of proportions like a jumbo Mars Bar in length. Or downloading three cans worth of food onto the kitchen rug into one perfect little cow's pat when we are out for the day. Or expelling something that still smells vaguely like organic canned cat food, cannot be identified either as puke or poop but is pungent enough to cause involuntary human heaving.
Because the cat is 16, it's fair to say that we do worry about him. A lot.
"Hope it was at least nugget-like? He had one last poop before I left and it was not unlike soft serve", my beloved texts after I inform him that the cat has graced the armchair with his sixth turdlet of the day in the space of as many hours.
"More like Jello meets Nutella, crusty tail beyond the reach of baby wipes, can you please pick up some kitty bath suds on the way home?".
We're giving the cat a bath tonight.
Did anyone say baby replacement?
I trust this is just a temporary bit of catflu or something and that its guts aren't always going to be so flowing?
ReplyDeleteMy cat is a naughty pisser. Can't seem to train it to go outside, especially when it's cold.
When I toyed with getting a cat, I imagined I would train it to use the toilet proper like. (Apparently, according to the internet, it is possible).
ReplyDeleteI share the baby-replacement affliction. Sometimes I imagine I am a hunter analysing fecal matter.
@Looby: the poor tyke is having problems pushing refuse out, so to speak. So it backs up for days, then the moment he gets uncorked, it gets everywhere, randomly and often without warning. Also, toilet efforts often lead to puking, again because of his age. And that breaks my heart, because there seems to be very little we can do to make him more comfortable, apart from feeding him the best diet we have found - organic and super healthy - and giving him as much love as possible, which is no hardship whatsoever. ;-)
ReplyDelete@Ellie: Cats should be cats - ours is deadly afraid of water and doing his business is such a strenuous endeavor he'd probably fall into the bowl from all the effort... As for the baby replacement note, well, thought I'd sneak it in there before anyone else does. Let's just say a pet is another outlet for love. And there is a lot of cross-species and cross-gender love in this household.
Hello, dear! Long time no chat!
ReplyDeleteHello John! How's life down the pub? Putting you back on the bog roll, oops, blog roll... ;-)
ReplyDeleteI'm good thank-you!
ReplyDeleteI haven't read up up on you in a while Mz. Curious! Poor Buddy! I did have a good laugh though.
ReplyDelete