I’m not writing this with a cat on my lap at the moment. Let me back up and tell you why.
Recently, my Beloved Old Cat has been harfing a lot. I was fine with this, but my husband wasn’t. It didn’t really bother me — cats puke more than other pets, and it just seemed to be part of my cat’s status quo. But my husband was concerned, repeatedly, and I’d been ignoring him. He’d never had an indoor cat till he met me, so he didn’t have the full indoor cat experience, I figured, puke and all. Plus we don’t have anything nice really, so what did it matter when the cat puked? Really, he should have picked that shirt up off the floor a long time ago — and stomach acid doesn’t bleach things out so much, assuming you catch it fast.
Well, we had another cold snap, and I was writing in bed with my electric blanket on, sitting up. My parents got us snuggies for Christmas, and I called dibs on the leopard print one, seeing as it was more “fashionable”. (Somehow.) I asked my husband to get me my snuggie because my arms were cold, and as he snapped it off of the couch and towards me….wet cat puke flung out and hit him in the face.
Well. After that, I didn’t have a leg left to stand on. So we took her to a vet and now we have to give her antacid medication twice a day. On the plus side, he’s helping me give her meds. (I’d be very bitter if I was the only one.) It’s become a perverse couples team building exercise, requiring excellent communication skills and physical coordination, to catch her. On the downside — she was a lapcat. Now she’s a nervous bolting furball who assumes the worst like a redheaded stepchild, perpetually the last lobster in the restaurant’s tank. So now she’s only a lapcat between the hours of 2 AM – 4 AM, once the indignities of the day are forgotten.
I miss my continuous lapcattage…but she hasn’t puked again since we started the meds, so I can’t throw any stones. Or puke, as the case may be.