electric mist

conned (wherein I learn just how not-smart I really am)

Last week, my cat started acting a little weird. Nothing too off, but she usually gets allergies this time of the year and I thought she was starting up with allergies again. Except... she didn't have any of the allergy symptoms, just a spate of odd behavior. By Friday, she was crying when I walked into the room. This cat almost never meows (except when we get in the car, then she tunes up like a diva soprano). However, now, I'd walk in the room where she was lying and there were these horrible, plaintive little meows that sounded like she was in pain. Real, terrible, horrible pain.

When she wasn't lying there crying, she was hiding and starting to freak me out. I can't tell you how weird it is to know the cat is most definitely in the house and to turn the house upside down for more than two hours and not be able to figure out where she's hidden herself. And man, was she creative. Worse, in addition to the hiding, she didn't seem to be eating much (unless I was sitting there with her and then eating only if I had spooned up the very bestest soft catfood to be purchased). She wasn't drinking much, either. I tried to take her in to her vet, but he's remodeling (and thus, closed) and I didn't think it was an emergency, per se, so I didn't want to take her into the animal hospital. She freaks out at the animal hospital but seems to tolerate the vet's really well, and I hated to traumatize her needlessly. Still, I resolved that if she wasn't better by this morning, I'd take her in to the vet's substitute.

I saw the cat at midnight. When I tried to find her this morning, she was nowhere to be found. I mean nowhere. I looked for three hours. Carl then looked for an hour. We sat and listened to see if we could hear something. Nada. Finally, Carl went back into the exercise room and decided to look underneath the treadmill. There is maybe, at most, two inches of clearance space, and somehow, the cat had gotten under there. I cannot fathom how, or what would have happened if I had started to walk this morning like I had planned.

She went into the cat carrier without fussing or seeming to care, until it closed, and then she just cried.

Everyone who saw her this weekend asked me if she was dying. I started to feel like I was the worst pet person in the world, because I didn't think she could be that sick that suddenly, and then I knew if it turned out that she was really sick and I hadn't taken her in earlier, I was going to feel horrible for her suffering.

We got to the new vet's office and she was still very docile. This cat has always been extraordinarily laid back. She's a calico and tolerates even hordes of kids vying for her affection really well. As I was signing her in, she perked up a bit, looking around. Then the vet's assistant walked in and at the moment she took her from me, my cat turned into the Evil that Satan's really really really bad seed aspires to.

I could not believe that was my cat. I've never seen her do that, never. She growled and meowed so loud, I would have thought she was a little mountain lion; she flipped and hissed and tried to bite the assistant multiple times. I've handed her over in the vet's before and there was nothing like this. I knew, then, she had to be dying to be reacting so badly. I told the woman to put her down and I'd catch her and calm her (because of course she loves me and was going to be calm) and the woman let her go. I cornered her under a bench and she reacted to me with the same fury she'd used on the assistant.

Finally, the assistant brought me a towel, which I tossed over my cat and she settled down on the spot. I wrapped her up, handed her over , went home and awaited the phone call.

A couple of hours later, the vet called me and said she'd gone over the cat pretty thoroughly and frankly, she hadn't seen a healthier cat in a long time. She wondered why I thought she was sick, and when I described what had been happening, the vet asked me if anyone had moved into or out of the house in the last couple of weeks. I said, "No."

"Any major changes in your household?"

"No, nothing."

"Did you move any furniture?"

"Furniture? Well, yeah. We just painted my office and moved out a big credenza and moved in my favorite reading chair. Why?"

"Does your cat like sitting with you in that chair?"

"Well, yes. Every evening. Why?"

"I think she's upset that you've made changes in the house and she's acting out. And since it's working and you're giving her more attention, she's keeping up the act."

"So you're telling me that I have been completely conned by a nine pound animal with a brain the size of a large walnut?"

"Yep. Pretty much."

Yeah, that university degree has done me a world of good.

Posted by toni at March 14, 2006 02:28 AM