Just Say No

Do you remember that after school special starring HelenHunt, the one where she takes angel dust and jumps through a plate glass window at the high school? Well, I accidentally did the same thing to my cat.

Yoko is my nine year old kitty, a sort of almost long haired black cat with one stubborn white spot under her chin, which makes her seem less evil. She is smart in a creepy sort of way.  She is the one who taught herself to pee in the toilet by watching the humans in the house. She knows how to open several different door knobs. I’m convinced if she had thumbs, she would have already figured out how to murder us all and drive my car to Mexico.

One thing about Yoko that really worries me, other than the part where I shouldn’t trust her motives, is that she is underweight. She began losing weight about four years ago, but over the past year she has leveled out to a delicate almost eight pounds. For a few years, we, meaning the vet and I, were concerned that something was wrong with her. Not so concerned that we put her through expensive and ultimately unnecessary tests, but concerned enough that she had to go to regular weigh-in appointments like a newborn baby.  Now her weight is stable, if just below normal, and we are opting to continue with a wait and see approach. No one relishes the idea of doing bloodwork on a cat that makes doing bloodwork on humans her life’s calling.

It isn’t that she doesn’t eat. It’s that she doesn’t eat much. She is always first at the food bowl, but just nibbles daintily on a few little morsels, leaving the rest for my other cat, the one with the appetite of a starving goat, to swoop in and shove the rest in face like it’s the last meal he will ever eat. By the time she decides she is hungry again, she is left with a bowl of little bits of premasticated food that dropped out of the other cat’s mouth. It’s the cat equivalent of back wash, and I don’t blame her for not wanting to partake in that for snack.

I started buying her a variety of wet foods, hoping that would stimulate her appetite. I know it’s not as healthy as the dry kind, but seriously, Yoko is a bit of a bitch. I don’t know if I can handle her having a prolonged old age, it’s it a tradeoff I am willing to make. I decided to feed her the wet food when the pig cat was sleeping so she would be able to finish a meal undisturbed. Unfortunately, she has proven herself to be as finicky about wet food as she is about people.  Even the one brand she has agreed to sample will remain untouched depending on her mood, sitting on its paper towel, waiting for the constantly hungry cat to wake up and discover its aroma.

Yoko spends a good portion of every day standing in the kitchen near the paper towel holder, waiting for someone to come along and rip off a sheet. That is her cue to start caterwauling, as she believes that with every paper towel comes the promise of that precious wet food. I now have to sneak paper towels because of the constant screaming of food she won’t even eat.

I came up with what I thought was a great idea. One thing Yoko does like to eat is catnip. When I sprinkle dried catnip on the rug, she does exactly what she is supposed to do; she rolls around in it and licks it and her eyes get all dilated and she seems pretty relaxed, although maybe not exactly chill. I thought, hmm, what better way to stimulate her appetite than to sprinkle some of her catnip directly in the food bowl? She would smell is heady scent and then gorge herself before slinking away to somewhere secluded to sleep it off.

I’ll be the first to admit I was wrong. Yes, she loved the food. She buried her face in that bowl like she was going downtown. I don’t know if she ate more because I didn’t stick around to see how she responded. Instead, I went to my bathroom to get ready for the day. I was in there putting on my makeup when my older daughter, E, started screaming.

“Mom! Mooommmm!”

I generally ignore the first few bellows of Mom. If I rush right in, how will they ever learn to solve their own problems? I continued to apply my mascara.

“Moommm! Help! Mom! Yoko!”

Ok, now I had a clue. Yoko was probably threatening E in a menacing manner. Or more likely, E was annoying the shit out of Yoko, and Yoko was ready to retaliate. I dug around in my makeup bin for my lip gloss.

“Mom! Oh my god, Mom!” and there was a blood curdling scream, followed by a horrible thud.

I assumed E had fallen down the stairs and ran from my bathroom to find out what happened.  I found E at the top of the stairs, sobbing hysterically, her back sliding down the wall, until she sort of crumpled into a pile on the floor.

“What is going on? Are you ok?” I was genuinely concerned. I looked at her face and arms for bloody claw marks but didn’t see any.

“It’s Yoko. She fell, oh God, she fell from the bannister. Is she dead?” I could barely understand what she said, since it was all in gasping sobs.

I walked over to the top of the stairs and looked down. No cat.

“I think she is ok,” I said. “Why don’t you try to calm down and I’ll go see if I can find her.”

I ran down the stairs and looked around. No Yoko. She wasn’t in the front room. Not the hall way. Not the kitchen. I finally found her loafing under the dining room table, looking pissed off, like normal. I picked her up and moved all her limbs. As usual, she hated being touched.

I trotted back up the stairs to where E was still sitting on the hallway floor.

“She’s fine. Seriously.  What happened anyway?”

E tried to catch her breath. “It was horrible. I came up the stairs and she jumped right in front of me, on the banister. I thought she was going to attack me. She looked so wild. And I called for you but you didn’t come. And I called you again and that’s when it happened.”

“What happened?”

“She fell. She kind of jumped backwards, and she thought she could hold on. But she couldn’t. She just couldn’t. She clawed at the railing on her way down. It was the most horrible thing I have ever seen. She just fell, right in front of me.  I stared into her eyes as she fell. It’s the worst thing I ever saw, that fear. I thought she died.” E isn’t dramatic at all.

It wasn’t the first time Yoko had jumped atop the bannister, but it was the first time she ever freaked out and fell to the first floor. And I knew why.

“E,” I said. “I think it’s my fault. I kind of put catnip all over her food.”

“Wait, what? You got the cat high? Why would you do that?” She stopped crying.

“I thought it would make her eat more,” I said.

“So you thought if you put catnip all over her bowl, she would have the munchies? Good one, Mom.”

“I didn’t think she would try to fly. I just thought she would eat a little more. I guess I won’t do that again.”

“I guess not, Mom. I guess not.”