How I Offended fAngus This Week. Also, an Essay Published!

fAngus, who is nearly seven (and no, I don’t know how old that makes him in cat years because, unlike dogs, cats don’t enthusiastically share their actual age with folk they consider staff) has always been a contrary little dude. He prefers not to snuggle, thank you very much. He spent most of his time as a kitten climbing door and window screens and hanging there, crying to go outside. Until he figured out ways to bust through and get outside into the wild green lawns for adventure, of course. He stopped climbing curtains after he got heavy enough to pull the rod down on top of himself, and has never tried since, which is a good thing since yesterday he weighed in at a robust twelve pounds.

Since we moved in with the horde, fAngus has mostly enjoyed his time in the country. He prefers outside constitutionals to the litterbox, standing at the sliding door and announcing his intentions with meowy gusto if no one is available to open it for him at his whims. He hunts mice in the yard and, yes, the occasional bird. The Black Fork Review published an essay I wrote about that earlier this week, if you want to check it out. I’ve tried keeping him in, but that cat is slippery as an eel when the door opens, and even his vet agrees his mental health clearly suffers when he’s stuck inside too long, so don’t yell at me.

Of course, outside, even in smaller doses, comes with risks. We are aware his life expectancy is shorter than a full time indoor cat. Luckily fAngus is extremely cautious and skittish: he hates cars and runs for the hills when one is near. He notices and hides from birds of prey (an important survival skill in a place with owls, bald eagles, and various hawks all big enough to cart him off as a meal), and doesn’t seem to go outside if the coyotes are howling in the distance. Still, I’m generally prepared for him to come in injured when I call him home at bedtime. Yes, I call him like a dog at about 9:30pm every night, usually from each side of the deck in case he’s hunting mice in the farmer’s field, on the golf course, or in the woods. It usually takes him fifteen minutes to a half hour to come trot into the yard, jump the fence, and sashay his proud feline buns to the sliding door for his evening drug fix of catnip at bedtime. Like I said, we’re just staff.

Wednesday I noticed that his usual floofy freak flag of a tail, which never stops swishing and flicking depending on his mercurial mood of the moment, was dragging behind him like a limp noodle. Even when he came in for his usual “I will allow you to pet me while I drool NO DO NOT CUDDLE JUST PET ME STAY AWAY now pet me more immediately oops I dropped drool on your pillow, but I’m not sorry, servant” routine his tail remained sad and limp. I couldn’t feel any break, but it didn’t move. Cats, if you don’t know, use their tails not only for non-verbal communication but also for balance, and there are a bunch of bones, nerves, and muscles in there. If he broke it badly, he could be in pain and danger of complications. Therefore, Thursday I had to load him up in the dreaded crate and take him to the vet.

I was ridiculously out of breath after finally wrestling him into the crate. Putting a cat in a crate shouldn’t be a workout, but it absolutely is. Once he gave up and accepted his fate, fAngus sat quietly and glared at me in his offense, plotting revenge. He didn’t even yowl much on the way to the vet’s office. He did leave sweaty paw prints on the exam table though, and hid under a chair as soon as he was allowed to get down. It’s amazing how small a twelve pound cat can make himself.

You know that paste stuff they always show on the social media posts that’s supposed to “tame” spicy cats because it’s just so delicious apparently even the most feral crankypants can’t ignore it? Lies.

fAngus gives no fucks about that stuff. He didn’t even deign to try a lick.

And in true fAngus fashion, he protested (but never got violent) his exam, charmed the bejesus out of all the vet techs who called him “magnificent” (he concurs), got x-rays, and has no visible break. The limpness of the sad tail has been on the mend: it’s not at full freak flag flight quite yet, so he definitely did something to hurt it this week, but thankfully he won’t need any portion of his tail amputated OR require manual bladder expression assistance (both of which would be offensive and mortifying for us both, I suspect).

As he’s currently sleeping belly-up on my bed as though he owns it and has not a single care in the world, I imagine he’s feeling better and I should probably check for vengeance hairball-vomit on my pillow.

Worth it.