SICK CALL

Bad enough being a cat sometimes. True enough no one asks a great deal of us. Truth of it is we wouldn’t do what anyone told us to do anyway. Not that we’re dumb or lazy. But ask yourself, and be honest. Folks don’t expect much of us cats, and that’s just the way we like it. Not even that we’re being particularly difficult-that’s just one of the appealing benefits. You see, its pure physics. Cats are simply defending one of the fundamental laws of the universe, and that is a body at rest tends to remain at rest, and I intend to remain at rest as much as possible! And if this week is any indication…

Back when I was in the big house up in Michigan, locked up with all the other stray and unwanted pets I picked up a little chest thing. Heck, more than a little thing. It swept through the cathouse like wildfire. Day in and day out, hacking and sneezing. I’d lay awake at night listening to some poor street cat wheezing and coughing as he fought for breath. Dark days, those. Lost one of those sissy-boy Persians. Hauled him out in a hefty bag.

Caught it myself before long. Worst I’ve ever felt in my life, short as it is. Got so I didn’t want to do nothing. Then the sneezing fits began. I wanted to die, it got so bad. When this pair of humans took me from the slammer, and dropped me here in this, well, half way house I was suffering these bloody sneezes. Each one about tore my chest out. I tell ya, I was ready for the good mother earth to wrap her arms around me and take me back.

They took me to some old guy in a long gray coat. He poked and twisted and explored me like I was a bad piece of meat at a Bombay deli. When that long needle came out I thought I was a goner for sure. I’d heard the stories back in the big house. I heard what humans do with cats they don’t want no more, and I thought, “Fine thing, they take me away from the only real family I ever know-ed-twice-and this is how it all ends.”

If anyone ever says dying don’t hurt, I can tell you, as a cat who come back, it’s a pain in the #$@! No seriously, that where Mister Labcoat stuck me, right in my hairy hind end! Not much I could do by then but wait, count my last breaths. Watch my life pass before my eyes; Mamma, my 7 siblings, how I cried when they were all taken one by one, playing on the beach, rolling in the grass, breathing fresh Michigan air. Such a short life I asked for reruns!

But then I got better. Took a few days, to be sure. The humans forced this pink disgusting medicine stuff down my throat with an eye dropper. Pretty soon I was back to my old self again. Until last week, until the sickness came back again. The humans didn’t miss a beat. Couple of sneezes and I was about begging for that pink stuff. Not that I let on, mind you. I put up a bit of a fight each time they stuck that dropper in my mouth, for appearances of course. After all, I’m a cat and humans have to know their place, right?