Fighting the Good Fight

Ding, Ding, Ding!

“In this corner, weighing in at 123 pounds (on a good day!), wearing blue and white striped boxers and a t-shirt from a television show that she worked on but was cancelled two years ago, give it up for our challenger, ‘Penny the Preposterous!’”  *insert polite smattering of ringside applause*

“And in this corner, weighing in at five pounds and eleven ounces, let’s hear it for our reigning Champion, ‘Pretty the Punisher!’”  *insert raucous uproar*

“Letttt’s get readddy to rummmble!!!”

Round One:

Trying to stuff a resistant cat into a travel carrier is kind of like trying to put a square peg into a round hole. Four legs dart out in protest, and just when you think you’ve got a handle on the situation, another arm or leg shoots out of nowhere and firmly blocks any progress you’ve made in the last twenty minutes.  But with a bit of luck, you occasionally manage to succeed…

“You’ll have to wait since you’re a walk-in. Next time you might want to make an appointment” the friendly receptionist recommended who clearly never battled the indefinite time-consuming challenge of attempting to confine a feline in a box.

“Thanks for that.”

Round Two:

“Seriously, it’s not that hard” the completely androgynous technician attempted to assist me in the proper manner of squirting antibiotics into the back of my cat’s throat.  “It helps if you have someone else to hold her down – I have cats too – but basically just put the plunger in her cheek, then aim it backward. OK?”

“OK” I responded, my head spinning and pea-brain quite unclear as to whether or not my response should be politely qualified with a “Maam” or a “Sir”.

“Here’s Pretty!” the technician added, handing over the carrier, my wide-eyed companion mad as hell and eye-balling me like the devil for allowing heathens to strap a plastic cone on her head.

“Thanks for that.”

Round Three:

Underestimating my actual fighting strength and stamina, I fearfully cocooned my kitty in a hefty throw blanket, managed to hold her relatively tightly in a bear hug, and with one lightening fast maneuver squirted a complete dose of antibiotics down her gullet.

Ding, Ding, Ding!

“Ha!” I shouted triumphantly to the invisible ringside crowd, bobbing and weaving as my worthy opponent headed to her respective corner of the bed.

“AAH!” I screamed two seconds later, rushing to the bathroom to sterilize the eight bloody claw marks drizzling in a red river down my left arm.

***

Without getting into too much detail, suffice it to say that Round Four consisted of some frightfully scary side effects of the antibiotics (which involved lots of spot cleaning of carpeting, if you get my drift), Round Five included a few panicky calls to one Rock Star Ex-Boyfriend should worst come to worst, and Round Six required yet another trip to the vet -- wherein my worthy opponent weaseled out of her headgear before I got her into the carrier; but was given a two week injection and a brand new cone tied with a lovely gauze bow.

For now, I’m calling this match a draw. There was no TKO, and Pretty’s still got a lot of fight in her!

With gloves off and fingers crossed,

~P