It was just after Christmas 2013 when I took a bath with my cat. As you might imagine, there’s a story leading up to that ill-fated washing.
Our two almost identical grey tabby cats – brothers Ben and Jerry – were 11 years old. They were both pigs, especially Jerry, who was constantly on the prowl.
On his rap sheet were the following:
- Ripping apart a Cheez-It box
- Swallowing a 4-foot length of string, which we had to pull out of his butt the next morning after giving him mineral oil
- Biting into a bag of flour
- Stealing a piece of chicken right off the dinner table
- Scattering the contents of a box of cereal all over the kitchen
And it went on and on. He was an omnivore, and nothing was safe when he was around. For instance, he and his brother went nutsy for raw green beans! During the summer, they would wait for me to return from the Sunday morning farmers’ market, then meow mournfully until I gave each of them a bean.
For Christmas dinner that year, we had a very delicious and juicy fresh turkey. It was so juicy that when we were cleaning up, we filled two large red party cups with the drippings from the roasting pan. Unfortunately, we forgot to put those two cups away in the fridge or somewhere else until we could dispose of them.
At nighttime, we would lock up the boys in the laundry room. Otherwise, they would wake us up at 4:00 AM for breakfast. The usual nightly ritual was for me to grab Jerry and carry him out to the laundry room (since he doesn’t go willingly). When Ben sees me doing that, he comes running, knowing that I will give each of them a snack as I leave them in there for the night.
On Christmas night, though, it was different. As I carried Jerry to the laundry room, I saw Ben licking his chops (four hours after they had eaten dinner), then he didn’t come to the laundry room. In fact, he turned tail and ran upstairs. So, I had to track him down and carry him out, too. Then, when I gave them their snack, Ben just stared at it.
The next morning, when I opened the laundry room door, I saw that one of them had been very sick during the night, leaving me a big mess (but without the usual hairball in sight). I still didn’t put 2 and 2 together, especially once they both ate their regular breakfast.
That morning, I started noticing little grease spots on the tile floor in our kitchen and dining room area. I thought we had just been a bit sloppy the day before and wiped up the ones I saw. Then my daughter Katy said to me, “Something’s wrong with Jerry.”
I looked at him, and the hair on his hind quarters was all matted and greasy, and he kept licking at himself. I still hadn’t figured it out, but I grabbed him and put him back out in the laundry room. That meant that Ben had to go out there, too, since that is where their litter box is. When my better half Barbara came home from work, I told her what had happened, and without even seeing Jerry, she said, “HE DRANK THE TURKEY GREASE!”
We then visited the miscreant and smelled his hind quarters. He smelled like turkey!
We then looked at the two red cups of drippings, which I had since put in the fridge, and Barbara estimated that between them they had consumed about a half cup of grease. As the pig of the duo, Jerry probably had much more than Ben did, and he was now paying the price. He was leaking oil like a Buick Le Sabre I had back during my college days.
Barbara pointed out that a vicious circle had been put in motion. The grease was coming out of Jerry’s butt, and he kept licking it, thus maintaining an unceasing flow. An intervention was needed. Since Barbara was working that week, and I was home on leave, it was my duty to deal with this situation.
So, on the next morning, I filled the bathtub with warm water and Palmolive (to break the grease). I put on a bathing suit, then went to get the four-legged grease ball. As we approached the tub, Jerry sensed that something bad was happening. With Katy’s help, I climbed into the tub while holding him. Then she closed the sliding glass shower doors, and it was just man, cat and dish water. As instructed by Barbara, I used a rag to vigorously wash his back parts. He howled and meowed and tried to escape, but there was no place to go. Then I looked down in the water. I was horrified to see that all kinds of other crud had come loose from Jerry’s butt area, and I was now standing in it!
Somehow, we got him rinsed off, and then Katy toweled him down as well as she could. I high-tailed it to my own shower to disinfect from having stood in a slurry of cat mess.
PostScript: Well past New Year’s Day, Ben hissed at Jerry whenever they got close. I guess he didn’t appreciate that Palmolive smell.