Louise and I have been together for almost 11 years. For those of you who are wondering, she is not my “partner,”not that there is anything wrong with that. No, Louise is a pudgy gray cat. We were long over due on her annual appointment, so I finally got her signed on up. I got out the ugly blue kitty carrier as I do every year along with a bag of fresh kitty treats. Usually I can entice her with kitty treats and give her a big ole shove into the carrier which is also littered with kitty treats.
Well, no more Miss Nice Kitty here. She took one look at that contraption and hauled it out of the room and down the hall like cats have only one life, not nine. I hadn’t seen her move that fast since she was apprehended while peeing on my garment bag about ten years ago. Uh-oh. So I started in on the foolproof Kitty Treat Doctrine which goes something like this: Shaking the bag while yelling, “Kitty treats! Come get your kitty treats here!” No response from the kitty treat monger. What?! My ace in the hole just gone – POOF? Outrageous! She can’t change the rules after 11 years! Then I realized — she is a TEENAGER! She was two when I got her, so she’s 13 now. That explains it.
Off I went down the hall in pursuit lugging the kitty carrier along, which was not exactly a stealth maneuver since it kept creaking. (Note to self: Use some WD-40 on that thing before the next visit.) So I stalked her down, offered her treats at close range, and nothing. Desperate, I tried the just-shove-her-in-the-dang-cage tactic, a proven winner over the years. No, she hissed, screamed, yowled and hissed some more as I wrestled her in there. Just as I was about the close the kitty door, she barreled out, 12 pounds of pure chubbiness and some scary-looking fangs. She won that round. In shame I had to call the vet and reschedule. And the score was clear — Louise – 1, Mommy – 0 with additional emotional distress.
The next day I employed a new strategy, the get-her-while-she’s-sleeping gig. Since she sleeps about 30 hours a day, that shouldn’t be too hard. We stopped in after a playdate, woke her up, and slammed her in there before she had really woken up. We were tied up — Louise -1, Mommy -1. And off we went to the vet with her mournfully meowing and sulking. Poor Louise. She had the dentist and the gynecologist combined into one big traumatic whammy.
When we got there, I kept the dogs in the waiting room out of her sight, but she had her female intuition telling her they were there. Or perhaps it was the loud panting or occasional “Yip!” When we got into the examination room, her reputation preceded her. The vet and her assistant both had gloves on as thick as oven mitts that went all the way to their elbows. They were armed – literally.
As they took her out of the cage, all hell broke loose with Louise snarling, screaming, hissing, and growling. (I didn’t know cats could growl, but now I know for sure.) Sam and I were covering our ears as the cacophony of sounds went on and on as the doctor gently examined her. Man, you would have thought there were 12 cats in there and they were being burned alive one by one. I was ready to call in the Exorcist as soon as the green bile came spewing out of her mouth. Cujo had nothing on her. Whew! “She really is a nice, sweet kitty at home,” I explained. Somehow they did not seem convinced. Exhibit A below.
Louise the Warrior Kitty continued with deep guttural snarls and growls interlaced with high-pitched screams and venomous hisses. It’s a good thing we had no idea what kitty-expletives she was using. That would have been mortifying. This is a cat who does nothing but sleep or lumber around the house with her tummy swaying back and forth, looking for a new place to sleep. Where was all of this vitrol coming from? Had she been eating our Wheaties without us noticing?
After one shot and a thermometer stuck up where the sun doesn’t shine, we were DONE! This time she raced back into the cage as if torturers were after her, and in her mind they were. As we came into the crowded waiting room, everyone started to chuckle. I wasn’t sure what was going on until one lady exploded, “You mean THAT cat made ALL that noise?!” I felt strangely proud of my Kitty Warrior.
Before we knew it, we were back home, and I immediately opened the door of Louise’s jail cell. The entire visit took less than an hour, but it felt like three weeks, a long three weeks. With one last hiss at me, she strutted her stuff out of that cage, dignity intact. Louise, let’s call it a draw.
LibbY