I don’t handle stressing out my cat very well. When we first brought her home from the shelter she brought a nasty case of both the sniffles and conjunctivitis home with her, and when we had to grab her and stick her in the closet so we’d have easy access to her when applying her medicine in the future, she ran all around the apartment letting out the most pathetic yowl. Remember how Luke Skywalker sounded after Darth Vader cut his hand off and then told him he was his father? She sounded like that. So as my wife and father-in-law continued to give chase, I screamed “YOU’RE KILLING HER!” Yes, I am still embarrassed, and thanks for asking. I try to fob it off by saying that I was paraphrasing Walter Sobczak from Lebowksi–“You’re killing your father, Larry”–but no one ever believes me.
Anyway, today I had to bring miss Lucy to the vet to get her claws trimmed. It’s easier to bring her there and have them do it than for us to try and do it ourselves at this point–she really hates being held, so rather than have her squirm and scratch and probably get injured while we try to do it, we let the pros handle it, and they’ve said she’s super well-behaved during the process so we don’t even feel all that bad about it. Well, today was the first time I had to rustle her up and stick her in the carry crate by myself, and I felt like an abusive father. Once she caught on to what was happening, she started with that heartbreaking “raaooohhhhwwww” again. Oh Lord, I don’t have the stomach for that! And when I finally got ahold of her, she just held onto the sheets of our bed for dear life (easy to do for her, considering her claws needed clipping), then sort of gave up and went limp. Poor baby.
The story has a happy ending, at least–the trimming itself took no time at all, and the vet tech said (once again) that Lucy was so good, so pretty, and so soft. That’s my girl!
(Hey, the Missus isn’t the only one who can write about our cat!)