By Liz McLeod
Again Your House Manager
“Certainly not!” declared Miss Carol T. Cat. “The very idea is out of the question!”
“Look,” I replied, resigned to repeating the arguments I’d been making for the past hour. “You have to do this. You know you have to do this. And the sooner we get it done, the sooner it’s over!”
“What you request is outrageous!” she roared back. “Monstrous! I know my inviolable rights! You cannot, you will not enforce your will upon me. I am my OWN cat.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. Or my head shook itself. I’m so tired right now every other part of my body is shaking, the head might just as well join in. “Look,” I sighed. “Look at the facts. Clearly there’s something going on. Since June, you’ve lost – well, a bunch of weight. Look at yourself if you don’t believe me.”
“Nonsense,” Miss Carol snorted. “A mere redistribution of assets. And besides,” she further snorted, with a particular snort aimed straight at me, “you are jealous! A glance at the mirror will prove the truth of my statement!”
“But you shouldn’t be losin’ weight at all,” I snapped back, “with all the food you’re eating. Look at that pile of empty cans!”
“I have intended to call those cans to your attention. Remove them at once, I find them unsightly. And refill my bowl.”
“Four cans a day, and you’re losing weight? And you don’t see the problem?”
“I have also intended to call to your attention the shoddy nutritional quality of my meals. I advise that you review my feeding standards. As you know, a Canada Lynx requires over two and one-half pounds of food per day.”
“You’re not a Canada Lynx.”
“The question of my citizenship is irrelevant. I have relatives in Montreal. Away with you, and bring my meal at once.”
And so on it went, into the night. Miss Carol’s troubling weight loss is reason enough for her to require a visit to the vet. But like any self-respecting felid, she doesn’t want to go. And so it falls to me to see that she goes.
Sounds a lot like the world right now, doesn’t it? We’ve all got to do things we don’t necessarily want to do for the sake of what needs to be done – for our own health, and the health of others. Sometimes that means wearing a mask even when it makes us uncomfortable, sometimes it means getting a shot when we don’t like to get shots, and sometimes it means riding in a ventilated plastic box in a bumpy car to see the vet.
See, when you put it like that, what we humans have to do doesn’t sound that bad, does it?
Miss Carol will see the vet on Friday, and I’m sure she’ll want to tell you all about how it went. If you don’t hear from me, well, I may just be waiting for the swelling from the scratches to go down…
