Last night Verti discovered a lump in the cat’s neck. Those of you with pets will know what I mean when I say that this information was received with mixed emotions. On the one hand there’s our poor cat, maybe with cancer, on the other there’s the vet’s bill. Immediately I was wondering how much I loved the cat, would a £500.00 bill win over the cheaper option of having him put down? What then would the children say? Would they hate me for ever more? Could we remortgage the house? It’s a bit like those guilty feelings you experience when coming upon a motorway pile up. On the one hand, the immediate feeling is of irritation at the pillock who caused the accident in the first place. I bet he was wearing a hat and hogging the middle lane or she changed lanes and didn’t use her mirror. Fancy not using more sense, now we’re all sitting here for 45 minutes or more while the mess is cleared up! Then comes the guilt How could you think like that? There are probably bodies, injuries, distraught parents, it could have been Verti! (She’s about to be released onto our roads and heaven help us all). Mixed emotions you see?
The trouble is, our cat, as the Jewish Footballer would say, ?Has Hotspur?. I’m not really a cat person, in fact, as I have mentioned in a previous blog, Ben was guilt present for an only child from a broken home, but somehow he has won me over. For one thing, he talks. I let him in in the morning after a night on the (patio) tiles and he says ?Hellow?. I ask if he’s hungry (how stupid am I?) and he says ?Mmmyum?. He eats his breakfast and then says a parting ?Mmmyumta,? and heads for the downstairs loo where he hops up onto the seat and has a pee (Just like Whiz now I come to think of it – for US readers, no pun intended), straight and true, none of your spraying the seat, or the floor! So how could I possibly contemplate sending him to the great litter box in the sky? OK, decision made so it’s into the cat cage, into the boot and off we go, down winding, dark, wet country roads to the distant vet’s surgery.
All the way I am entertained by Ben uttering a word I don’t recognise but I certainly understand, It’s ?Mmwoah? a kind of hollow, unhappy miaou that is an indicator, in this case of his worry at being in a basket and hurtling round bends and over bumps to his worst nightmare. On other occasions the same (to me) yowl can mean ?I’m about to throw up!? or ?I’ve brought you a present (decapitated mouse, thanks!)? It is to be hoped that kittens have better tuned ears than humans and can tell the difference between ??Mmwoah, grub up? and Mmwoah chuck up? or else life could be a bit of a gamble in the cat family!
The vet tells me that he has been in a fight (again) and has an abscess which requires
1. An injection
2. Five days worth of tablets at a rate of 2 per day.
While I am there I purchase one pack of Front Line for ticks and flees and 2 months worth of Spot On for worms. The bill comes to £65.00!
?Mmmwoah?!