Heavy Petting by William Hicks

Author:William Hicks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Musa Publishing
Published: 2011-12-01T16:00:00+00:00

How I Plan to Pay My Cat’s Medical Bills

by Gail Cohen

You’ll need a bit of background to grasp the full extent of my dilemma. I’m one of the statistics mentioned on the six p.m. news, when talk about cutting entitlement programs hits the Capitol steps. I never feel very entitled when my Social Security check arrives, but being on a fixed income does simplify life. It’s just the cats and me. We live a Spartan life. Feel free to take liberties with the picture that just popped up in your head.

One of my boys grew unusually listless right before Christmas. I’m Jewish so I knew tinsel couldn’t be tangling up his lower digestive tract. I found no ripped-apart candy cane wrappers, since I don’t put them out in a festive glass jar per Martha Stewart’s “Casual Christmas Decorating on a Dime” article.

Come to think of it, there were no potato pancakes either. I figured the cat was as depressed as we were about to face another cheery holiday amid the stock market fiasco, my most recent job loss and another failure to keep my lifetime Weight Watcher’s goal anywhere close to the number on my card.

My cats usually race to the bowl whenever they hear the bag of food being opened. They are like me: food is the great motivator. But when I noticed only one cat showing up at chow time—and a smaller than usual amount of waste occupying the litter box—it dawned on me that something was up. Literally and figuratively.

I checked Sunkist’s belly. Yes, it was still dragging the ground. That cat hadn’t missed a meal since Clinton took office. Dreamsicle, on the other hand, matched my mood. Sour. Listless. But thin. After scratching up my face with his claws as I attempted to lower him into his carrier (where did that burst of energy come from, I wondered), we traveled to the vet. The bleeding on my face had stopped by the time we arrived, and, as usual, nobody batted an eyelash or remarked about the scratches scattered across my face like graffiti.

Why bother? It would be like asking an animal lover why he or she seemed perpetually dressed in a layer of pet hair.

Would I leave him there for a few hours, the front desk receptionist asked? I had to shut off the taximeter in my head by vigorously nodding, “Yes.” Then, I added my usual farewell message. “Please don’t kill my cat and then bill me for it.”

I headed home to wait for the vet to call with the diagnosis. Four hours later, I was summoned to the vet’s office. The cat, it seems, was constipated. Really constipated. X-ray kitty, high colonic blood work, IV fluids, two hundred and seventy-five dollars’ worth of constipated. I forked over my plastic.

We drove home in silence. Dreamsicle had the good sense not to do his usual pitiful meowing thing to let me know how put upon he felt. Likely, he was busy figuring out ways to hunker down within the recesses of his fancy leather carrier.

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