willhines.net

I am emotionally drained after getting Maggie spayed today. This is ridiculous. Clearly, I can not have children. If bringing a six month old mass of sentient fur out of my apartment for five hours leaves me like this, I can’t begin to imagine what it would feel like to know my child is about to have his first day of gym! Or God forbid, an Actual Problem of some relevance.

By the way, I swear this will not become one of those blogs that speaks only of cats. Maybe. I could make a category for “cats” on this blog. Organizationally, I probably should since there’s already at least 3 cat entries. But I refuse to admit that I’m talking about them that much, even though I am. It just happens there’s cat-heavy news recently, I’m going to tell myself.

See, I’m hesitant to admit it because I don’t want to be known as a cat person. Because you rarely hear anyone described as a cat person — they’re always “crazy cat people.” Perhaps I am a crazy cat person. I know I don’t seem like it to the outside world. I don’t have the energy, or whatever, of a cat person. I walk around all cool and shit; you’d never know. Yet my family grew up with cats. The Hines boys like cats. And I would go so far as to say that we’re good with cats. Sure, I treat them like little animate computer programs sometimes (”Fascinating. The cat prefers the wire hangar to the keys. I shall observe this further.”) But I love them and like knowing they’re happy in my home.

Also, cats are more my style than dogs comedically. Dogs: emotive, high-energy, mirroring. Cats: aloof, deadpan, perpetually commenting that the scene around them is nuts. Dogs would faithfully do celebrity impersonations. Cats sit back with a snide remark and raised eyebrow. If they had eyebrows. Dogs are Jim Carrey. Cats are Bob Newhart.

Anyway, today I was supposed to get Maggie and Hopey spayed, but I couldn’t get them both into carriers. Their appointment was 9:30. I was up at 8am. I had left the carriers out by their litter box, and left their food inside all week. They had been poking around them, and I foolishly thought it might be easy. But this morning, I scooped up Hopey, who instantly sqiurmed and gashed my hand with her paw and bit me, then took off — never to allow me to come within 2 feet of her the rest of the day. That was just trying to pick her up.

I spent another 20 minutes trying to get Hopey. Then I decided that I’d cancel the appointment and get a bigger carrier. Why a bigger carrier would help I don’t know now. But I searching for any excuse to not have to actually take them in. I called the vet, and the receptionist berated me:

“You can’t be nice. You can’t poo-poo them in. You have to just do it. Grab them by the scruff of the neck and drop them in butt-first.”
She sounded a bit fed up, and I suddenly felt bad for letting her down, not to mention a bit emasculated. I wanted to say that grabbing them by their neck sounded mean, but I felt like my manhood was now on the line.

Then Maggie, who had come to love being petted by me, sauntered right up to me, and I dutifully petted her for a few minutes. Then I grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and lowered her in the carrier, butt-first. She was more terrified than I’d ever seen her. She started to squirm in the air, but when she was halfway into the carrier she figured out what was happening and really started to flail. I slammed shut the door, and locked it, sustaining just a few more small cuts. Maggie — without making a noise (she never meows) — scrambled around the carrier furiously. She stretched her arms through the gate and bit its bars. Her ears lay straight back and hissed a few times. She sounded like she was fighting for her life!

Hopey at first came up to inspect — I think she thought Maggie wanted to play — but then she sensed her sister was crying out for help and she loyally ran across the apartment and hid under my laundry. Maggie looked frantic. She won’t ever meow, but she mouthed “meow” at me, which broke my heart. I tried to lean over and talk to her, thinking my voice might calm her, but just backed away to the back of the carrier. and hissed. Angry, but now still.

I carried her outside — when the cold air hit her, she started a second round of scrambling — maybe she thought she was going to be let go outside? I drove to the vet’s. By the time we got there, she had calmed down — or more likely exhausted herself. I dropped her off and came back five hours later. They surgery went fine, but the slow-healing cut might mean there’s some condition where her auto-immune system isn’t 100% or something. I took her home and let her out, and she scrambled away and hid behind the bed.

I sat down, exhausted. I was really looking forward to sitting there and feeling sorry for myself for having to endure the stress, but unfortunately an enormous tsunami killed 200,000 people this week, and it sort of prevents me from taking any of my own problems too seriously. She’s a kitten, and she’ll be fine.

Though it’s sad to see her scared of me again. Just last night, she jumped up on the bed wanting to be pet for the first time. Now I can’t get near her, unless she’s tucked behind my headboard. I pet her a bit there when she first hid. I left a hunk of her favorite food in front of her face, which she would not eat in front of me, and a plate more of it on my pillow, which she ate when I was in the other room. I hope she forgets this and goes back to liking me pretty soon. What a lousy thing to have to do to scared kittens!

I suppose this is obvious, but the tortorous part is that you can’t explain to them what’s going on. In a strange way, it’s worse than when a person is sick, even painfully sick — since then you can talk it through.

And Monday I have to do it to Hopey. The one who is already more scared of me! Be prepared for another unnecessarily long description! Man, what a great blog!