My cat is fourteen years old, making him in his mid-seventies in cat years, and he has always been vicious, loud, obnoxious, and anti-social. Until recently, that is. Over the past year he has decided that his favorite place to hang out is in somebody's lap.
I recognize as I write this that there are a lot of cat haters out there. While I might not understand how anyone could hate such interesting creatures, everyone is entitled to his or her preferences; I myself am not very fond of dogs, so there you have it.
I have liked my cat all along, in spite of his nastiness. It was kind of upsetting when I found out about a week ago that he had a tumor in his head and would have to have it removed ... along with his right eye. But that was nothing to how I felt when I saw him after his surgery. It seemed to me as if the vet performed one of those shady, unsanitary, patched-up, back alley operations from the condition he was in, with blood all over his little face and crooked stitches made from something that looks like fishing line, helter-skelter across his eyelid.
One of my students said we should just put him down. Someone else asked why go to all that trouble to save the life of an obnoxious cat who's old anyway? Particularly one that has a history of biting children. Well, that's a hard question. Rather like asking my neighbor why he didn't get rid of his nasty pit bull that kept jumping the fence and attacking people--it was so dangerous it caused my sister, the toughest of the tough, to actually scream while she was booking it back into the house after trying to be a good neighbor by peaceably mowing her own back yard.
Oh, well. The cat is fine, and cuddlier than ever.
No comments:
Post a Comment