kerewin's whine cellar

She was a day tripper, one way ticket, yeah

So I was reading about a curious flea cure for dogs and it reminded me of the time my cat Fatbody had fleas. So I wrote out the story, and then emailed it to the person in question. Now, I assume this person gets a LOT of internet traffic and consequently a lot of emails. So you could say that I was:

1. A total Star Fucker
2. Psychotic Internet Stalker
3. Seriously interested in sharing my funny story
4. All of the above minus C.

However it IS a really good story, so I just copied and pasted it here for everyone else's entertainment. Although the dog story might be a tad funnier, since you can't hear the VERY IMPORTANT sound effects required for a complete telling of the story. That doesn't stop me from telling it, however.

Here is Fatbody on the "kitty chair" the styrofoam chair the Hub once drug home from a garage sale. Good ole FB took it right over.

Oh the things we do to our animals in the name of science. Your story about poor Chuck reminded me of something I did once to our lovely cat, named Fatbody. Yes, Fatbody. When my husband (then not even an acquaintance) adopted the poor, homeless stray, he and his roommate at the time did a cursory exam and decided it was a girl and named it/her Nelly. Then they took it to the vet and found out (oops, didn't look hard enough!) it was a boy. For some really really stupid reason they decided a good male cat's name would be Scoop. Well, having previously been homeless this cat wouldn't turn down a full bowl of food even if he was gorged, and the boys didn't know to portion his meals and he got chunky, rather quickly. This was around the time that they had an unhealthy fascination with Full Metal Jacket and started calling him Fatbody, as in, "You are a disgusting Fat body, Fatbody!" and the name stuck.

What does this have to do with the pet story? Not much, I just got sidetracked by the funny name story.

So a couple of years later, the man and I moved in together into this cute little house that was turned into apartments and everyone around had tons of cats and lots of yard space so we let the cat roam where he may. Of course, the area was CRAZY with fleas. Turns out Fatbody was allergic to fleas and they bothered him so much that he would chew his fur off, so he got all these sad patches on his flank. And yes, fleas. GROSS, right?

Fatbody also had these amazing claws of death and the FASTEST reflexes of any animal I have ever seen. We used to sit on either side of him and toss a ball back and forth as FAST as possible and he usually was able to intercept it. Then there was the time he started pushing the ball back to us, as if to play catch with us. It wasn't a fluke because he did it over and over and over until you wanted to burst with joy. There I go getting all sidetracky again. Anyway, a good old flea bath was out, unless you wanted to lose a limb or something, so I went to the pet store. The ORGANIC pet store, of course. They sold me this spray that comes along with a little comb. You spray, flea death, you comb the flea death out. Sounds charming, doesn't it?

This is when we were moving from the apartment to the house, Fatbody laying on, what else? a food box.

The spray wasn't supposed to harm the cat in any way and compared to the flea bath stuff they tried to sell me, it seemed like a good compromise, if a little more work. Stupid, stupid me, I forgot that at that time we were using a spray bottle (filled with water, of course) to help discipline the cat from clawing things to pieces, or jumping on the table. So I sit on the floor with my legs out in a V and park the cat in the middle and put an arm around him to keep him from running away and start spraying. NOT a friendly response. Yes, lots of fleas were losing their lives in the valiant war, but HOLY MOLY, the amount of fleas that poor kitty had on him. Then Fatbody started this deep, deep growling that I could FEEL. MrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRooooooewwwwwwww. Shit. Could the death claws be far behind? Did I mention I decided to undertake this task on a day that 'then boyfriend' was at work, and I was all alone and self-sufficient? I tell you, the ways in which I am incomparably stupid are too numerous to count.

"Okay" I tell myself in my head, "just take it easy and you can both get out of this alive." So I continue to lightly spray the poor kitty, who just hunches down and takes it like he knows he is getting punished for something he didn't do. Then the hissing starts. The turned head, looking at you, ears down, full out, "HHHHHHHSSSSSSSS." Birds for miles started to fly South.

What's the solution? His name wasn't Fatbody for nothing, so I went and got a bowl of food and got us back in our V formation but I plopped the bowl of food in front of him and went back to work. At this point I didn't really even need to hold him since the lure of food was good enough. Still, all the while I was spraying him, (spray, comb, wipe, spray, comb, wipe...at this point we were both rather soaked with this environmental spray shit I bought) he was growling that deep deep growl. However, he was also eating, punctuated by a turned head hiss. I can't even recreate the sound here in type, let me just say it is a big hit at parties and I have friends who to this day still make the noise when we are hanging out. Something like, "MMMnnmmm grrrr MMMMnnmmm grrrrr HHHHHHSSSSSS." Nope, you have to hear it.

Here he is, before the flea incident, laying on our back dech, the lazy head resting on the doorframe.

I finally just gave up, we were both soaking wet, unhappy and on my side a huge degree of guilt from using a flea death method that echoed the punishment we were giving him when he was bad. When The Hub came home from work (then boyfriend, of course) we came to a better solution, we went to the vet's and got him some of those drops that work for 3 months at a time. Poor, poor Fatbody.

That cat had many adventures, jumping out a 2nd story window, losing an eye, getting diabetes, hypoglycemic shock trips, hypothyroid radiation, a couple of trips to the emergency vet.....yet everytime he bounced back all fat and sassy. [Funny side note: Whenever he had a surgery, or a hypoglycemic episode and had to hang out at the vets for a couple of days I would call and check up on him. The nurses would always say, "Oh he seems to be doing great, he's just eating a ton!" I never realized until the cats we have now that when an animal isn't feeling good it doesn't eat. Good ole Fatbody, always eating.

This is Fatbody and half of the Hub's old roommate, the one who guessed the sex wrong. Man that cat was loooong and he so loved that chair.

He was so, so sweet and in February of '02 when we had to put him down, I cried hard for hours. I miss you darling Fatbody, you were SUCH a lover. We were really lucky to have you in our lives.

Posted by kerewin at December 14, 2004 08:24 PM