Corndog Gets Battered
a feline adventure with a cast of thousands.
07/23/2002
It’s been a tough week for Corndog the Wonder Kitten. He was doing a fine job of tolerating the normal tribulations of early feline development: Slamming headfirst into the wall after diving at the drapes; slamming headfirst into the TV set after lunging at the baseball game, and enduring numerous face-shots from the spray bottle that serves as our Dinner Table First Strike Kitten Deterrent (available soon through the Homedaddy Online Store®).
He started taking his lumps literally, in the form of an insect bite on his chest that swelled to the size of a golf ball before I’d admit that perhaps something might be happening.
Differences between the veterinarian’s office and the pediatrician extend far beyond the absence of Highlights Magazine in the waiting room. At the vet, waiting times are much shorter, the staff is much friendlier, and the doctors seem to enjoy their work. Otherwise, the prices are comparable.
Luckily, we signed on for the special "Kitten Package" when we adopted Merle and Corndog, so all routine exams are covered in the first year. Oddly enough, this does not include spaying and neutering, which is socially mandatory for all cat owners except professional breeders. Apparently, when you tack on those extra few hundred, it makes the price of the Kitten Package seem a bit bloated.
The Kitten Package is cheap; kitten package removal is another thing.
Corndog’s infected bug bite was no big deal except for the liquid antibiotic, which needed to be squirted down his gullet twice a day. When will they learn to make the stuff taste like giblets?
The worst part of the visit was the dreaded FRT, or Feline Rectal Thermometer. The procedure didn’t much agree with Corndog, which doesn’t put him in a very elite category. He may have nine lives, but apparently his one measly backside is supposed to last for all of them.
It reminds me of the time that Emma (then about 3) accompanied me to the vet with Wilson the Giant Black Lab. Emma was keenly interested in all aspects of animal medical care, especially anything that had to do with shots, danger, or pain. When it came time to take Wilson’s temperature, Emma ignored all suggestions to skip this part and positioned herself for a good look. The technician, a shy young woman, looked at me quizzically as if to say, "You gonna allow this?" I shrugged my best "Kids, whattaya gonna do?" gesture, then glanced at my watch and cleared my throat to tell her to quit playing for time.
With Emma kneeling at ground zero with her eyes bugging out, the technician followed normal procedure, which caused Wilson’s hind legs to buckle slightly. Then followed the customary uncomfortable silence while we all waited for the mercury to rise (note to self: invent a word for this… similar to the word for Elevator Silence). Just when you could hear a pin drop, Emma, for some reason, breathlessly exclaimed "Oooh, baby!" I don’t know why. She had never said it before, and hasn’t since. I think it was a mistake; clearly her intent was to express some variation of "wow."
Judging from her blush, the technician appeared to be badly shaken. I tried to shrug it off but it was no good; we had worn out our welcome. To this day she keeps her distance. We’ve been branded as That Weird Family.
But I digress…
Once home, things resumed their normal pattern for about ten minutes until Corndog tried to shoot the gap through the kitchen door. I was carrying an over-loaded laundry basket, hopping on one foot while trying to slam the door shut with the other. I hear the door make a sort of crunchy, grinding sound, and looked behind me to see Corndog on the back porch, shaking his left front paw like B.B. King applying his famous vibrato.
Corndog is not a fussy cat, so he carried on pretty much as usual, but when the limp didn’t go away after a couple of days it was back to the vet. He got that look of Old Testament fear in his eye when we arrived, but I swore there’d be no thermometer this time.
Instead, there were X-rays which, naturally, are not covered under the Kitten Package. The Kitten Package only waives the cover charge; after that there’s a Two X-ray minimum. Oh yeah, plus the cast on his leg. Judging from the price, it’s not very easy to put a cast on a cat’s leg.
Now instead of the pitter patter of little kitty paws in our house, it’s pitter pitter CLUMP, pitter pitter CLUMP. His middle toe, it turns out, was not broken but merely dislocated. The cast stays on for three weeks.
It wouldn’t be real life without additional complicating factors: Since we were slated to drive south on a trip to LA the next day, I hastily arranged for a house-and-pet-sitter, then performed my usual shovel-everything-into-the-largest-duffel-bags-known-to-man packing technique.
Thankfully, the trip was uneventful. We were relaxed enough that we didn’t even bother calling to check up on the house sitter until the day before our return, when he informed us that Corndog was missing, cast and all.
The toughest part was hiding this fact from Emma, who was frequently wondering out loud how her kitties were doing without her. It also neutralized one of our tantrum control tools during the drive home, which is to calm the children down by reminding them that pretty soon, they will be cuddling their kittens again. We didn’t want to build it up, only to blindside them with horrible news later. Corndog was giving up a lot of speed and mobility with that cast on his leg. Just enough, I thought to myself, to be a sitting duck on our busy street.
We didn’t get home till after midnight, and Emma was still awake despite our trying every trick in the book. Luckily she was too groggy to remember to ask for Corndog. We kept the lights low and let her fall asleep petting Corndog’s sister Merle.
As soon as the animal shelter opened the next morning, Julia drove out there and discovered that indeed Corndog had been found hanging around outside the corner mini-mart. Since he doesn’t wear a collar, it was lucky he had a cast on his leg. A rather unusual accessory for a stray. They took him home and played with him for three days till we came to claim him. He had chewed his cast off at some point but was otherwise none the worse for the wear and tear.
Corndog’s wanderlust once again raised the question of his "Kitten Package" and the date of his neutering, since it is believed that males tend to stick around the house after "the change." Probably because they spend all their time searching the premises for their misplaced units ("That’s funny, I usually keep ‘em hanging next to the back door… they were here yesterday… oh well, guess I’ll have something to eat...").
Kind of like a Homedaddy looking for the car keys, but more expensive. Not to mention the cost of a new cast. The dollars are adding up. If he chews off any more of them, it’ll be a cast of thousands.
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