Pussies In Bondage

As part of trying to maintain some semblance of being amicable with The Wife, and since I’m still living there, I continue to help around the house. This includes taking my share in the care of the cats I introduced last post. Occasional feeding, litter box cleaning, brushing,… and the annual excursion, which occured yesterday, where we get them to the veterinarian for their shots. This is otherwise known as “GnuKid’s Kitty Smack Down”.

When it is time to take them, we have to put them in separate cat carriers, otherwise they may mutilate each other… aw, hell, who am I kidding… it’s more likely that The Twit will piss all over as he usually does, and we don’t want to have to clean up two cats.

Putting them in the carriers is the ‘fun’ part of this adventure. It starts the night before where the house must be put on lock-down… doors are closed to prevent escape and limit hiding places. The cat box is moved for the same reason. Unfortunately, this also alerts the cats that something is up and it likely won’t be fun for them. When it’s time to actually lock them into their little kitty cells, the chase is on.

The Diva plays the martyr of the two. It’s usually fairly easy to get her. She surrenders quickly and sort of flattens out against the carpet… is she hoping I won’t see a flat cat? Or is it that she thinks if she gets her center of gravity low enough, I won’t be able to move her? But, she goes, grudgingly, into her carrier and sits there looking pitiful and very hurt at the indignation I’ve visited on her.

The Twit is the challenging one. The key is to try to keep him clueless as long as possible. Given his natural proclivity for cluelessness, you’d think that’d be easy. But, history has taught me that he will fight, so I have to get a towel to protect my arms from the multiple daggers of his claws. As soon as he sees the towel, all hell breaks loose. He immediately starts yowling, as if he’s calling some kind of Kitty 911 hoping that the Cat Defense League will leap into action and come save him from my heinous attempts to confine him. He also starts dodging and weaving, with moves that would befuddle the best defenseman in your sport of choice. My response is to progressively limit his escape routes until his only way out is through me… thus the many scars on my arms as he is more than happy to attempt said escape. The Twit’s yowling continues, loud and strong, even after capture, on the drive to the vets, in the vets office, and the return home.

Hmmm… I think I’ve decided who’s getting the cats in the Divorce…

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*Yeah, the title is descriptive of the content of the post itself, but I’m also curious to see how many Google Search hits I get randomly from this title…

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Cries in the night

In general, I like pets. Varied and sundry. From an 18-hand horse to sea monkeys bought from the back of a comic book. But, especially tonight, there are some that annoy me a bit. Hey, I’m only human. My recent example of getting annoyed was caused by the incessant yapping of the neighbor’s two ‘practice’ dogs.

Practice dogs are those pint-sized replicas of man’s best friend who’s sole purpose seems to be to eat, poop, and pee. They pause only (and too often) to loudly decry any perceived imposition on their senses. Why they do so and who they are truly yapping at, only they know. Perhaps it is just their way of acknowledging their lack of true dog-ness. Or they’re responding to some secret signal from their home planet.

Hmmm…Come to think on it, I know people like that at work, too…