They say that owning a cat can make you live longer.
And in light of the number of cats we have, my wife and I are going to live a long, long time. Our most recent addition goes by the name of Boy Cat. When we got to the shelter, there were a lot of cats in need of a home, but the choice was pretty clear: any of them but Boy Cat.
Unfortunately, my wife’s logic was irrefutable…if we didn’t adopt him, no one else would.
On the bright side, the…goop…leaking down his face eventually went away, and his weird, pink underbelly eventually regrew all its fur.
Other problems were trickier. Because of his weight problem, he wasn’t quite flexible enough to clean himself properly, and so he’d developed a waxy spot where he couldn’t reach his lower back.
That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that he couldn’t reach…further down. And so he took to…dragging…himself along the carpet.
In a way that left long, dark streak marks.
Of course, his weight problem was accompanied by, let’s say a healthy appetite. That is to say, he snarfed his food down so quickly that he immediately threw it back up again (only to be eaten by the other cats).
And that means we have to feed him with a food-dispensing plastic ball. Which cuts down on the vomiting, though we seem to have taught him that if he pushes things around with his nose, they’ll feed him.
So maybe owning a cat just makes life feel longer.
