Charcoalatte Critters: Cat Anxiety
It’s my lunch break and I’m sitting here at the vet, waiting for the nurse to come back with Abbey. It took me several minutes before I could get Abbey into the crate to drive her over here. Now, the vet is x-raying her belly for bladder stones. The x-ray costs $180.
There is a lot of talking and laughing back there. Seems like it’s a nice place to work. Or maybe it’s their laugh-at-these-idiot-pet-owners-while-we-take-their-money hour.
Abbey is very sensitive to loud noises and we had construction workers digging up the floor of our bathroom to replace a defect in the marble tile (yes, I realize how totally 1% that sounded). Abbey was displeased that she was not consulted about this project and has decided to hold her pee in protest. Apparently that resulted in something called sterile cystitis — cat UTI. It’s a fancy word for I’m gonna attempt to pee in any basket I find except for my litter box until you realize that I am Queen. WTH?
The heavily tattooed vet tech brings me 8 cans of soft food for cats on a C/D diet — $15 which will help with her anxiety. Can’t I just have the damn cat lick one of my Zoloft instead? What about my anxiety? I was there during the construction, too. Don’t I deserve at least 1/2 a Xanax?
I was not raised with animals. In fact, anyone who knows me as a child will know that animals terrified me. My daughter on the other hand is fascinated with fury creatures. She will do anything for the damn cat. I’ve seriously calculated the odds that Abbey will be found and adopted by a nice, lonely old lady if I accidentally left the door open today. But the chances are not good. Abbey, being an innocent indoor cat would probably walk right into the street and fall asleep on the warm tarmac. I do not wish to explain to HBy that the white, black and brown rug in the middle street is her precious cat. Never.
So I pack Abbey back into the crate, reluctantly hand over my credit card to the receptionist, and pretend to coo at (but secretly curse) the cat as she hisses at me from inside the crate.
