Puss in Boot

Yesterday was my first ever visit to a vet. The cat had a cut paw, so we borrowed the neigbours’ (her real owners’) cat carrier and made an appointment. Or at least, we made an appointment after The Man made a big fuss about how we had to find a vet who voted Green because patronising a Liberal vet would be supporting someone who was against us, and despite it being first thing on Sunday morning he called some high ranking member of the Green party to ask them to recommend a vet. Apparently, shopping ethically is part of his new plan to revolutionise the social fabric of Australia. After I’d finished sighing, I asked him if that meant we could only go to cinemas, petrol stations, supermarkets, toll roads etc owned by Green or Labor voters, out of consistency. He seemed pretty excited by this idea.

So, once that production was over, the next hurdle was to actually find the cat. I found her sitting high on a wall at the end of our block. She meowed in recognition, but didn’t move. I trotted back home and came back with a bowl of her leftover canned salmon. I waved it up to the wall, going “oooh, smelly fish, lovely!”. She looked a lot more interested this time, standing up, stretching, wandering along the wall to follow me when I pretended to be going back home. But would the damn cat actually come down? It turned out she was toying with me. The Man turned up too, and there we both were, in front of passers by, going “Come on Kitty! Lovely smelly fish for you! Mmmmm! We wish we were eating smelly fish!” etc. She did everything – peering down, blinking alertly, lying down on her side and reaching out her paw – everything except come down off the wall. In the end The Man came back with the ladder and grabbed her.

I’ve never heard our docile kitty yowl like that before, but I think she suspected a visit to the vet was on the horizon, after the arrival of the cat carrier. This girl who happened to be passing actually looked terrified. I was quite terrified myself, as enraged kitty’s paws raked through my FIRST TIME ON Jigsaw top.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, kitty has three staples in her little paw and a big red bandage that looks like a boot – very cute. She also had a bottom temperature reading, to my horror. Call me naïve, but at first when the vet whipped out her thermometer I had this vague thought ‘How is she going to get that under kitty’s tongue?’. Now I know why we needed the ladder to get her down off the wall. I bet I was nearly as traumatized as she was.

So now she’s at home, recovering delicately, and shooting us mournful looks. The Man is going round pulling his hair out and complaining that they were too rough with his darling moggy. Honestly, men.