How the cat shrunk

Art by Marlene Llanes, a surrealist artist based in Austin, Texas

Our cat is large.

His weight hovers around fourteen and fifteen pounds, and if a vet is meeting him for the first time at the local animal clinic, s/he will note the weight on his record, and expect to see a roly-poly feline, only to be confronted with a long and lithe leonine tabby, capable of knocking things from the counter with his hind paws on the floor.

We have always fed him carefully, but changes in routine over the past couple of years mean that the Resident Fan Boy has taken over the feeding regimen.  I had the dry food food bag set up nicely in a cupboard beyond the cat's long reach with an ancient metal measuring cup as a scoop - used because it is a) old, battered, but clean, and b) it fits into the bag. 

After a few months of feline-feeding, the RFB took the cat into the clinic for a routine pedicure.

The vet informed the RFB that the cat now weighed twelve pounds, not a bad weight for your average tabby, but rather too svelte for our puny puma.  The vet recommended, the RFB told me that afternoon, upping the dry food serving to a cup and a half from one third of a cup.

I gazed at him for a few incredulous seconds.

"Uh, one third of a cup?  The bag says "1 1/4 cups" for a cat of his size.  You've been feeding him one third of a cup per day?" 

The RFB shrugged sheepishly. "That's the measure that was there, and you said to cover the bottom of the bowl...."

"That was for kitty litter!!!!"

No wonder the cat has been eating the toilet roll.

(He's back to his normal weight now.)

Taking things "litterally"

I really want to make this clear. I've been fortunate, in the aftermath of Demeter's fall last January, that the Resident Fan Boy has taken up a number of my chores.  

In the early days, that was nearly all of them, because I stayed with Demeter during the first week, and went in four times a day after that, to assist with rising and breakfast, lunch, supper, and the bedtime routine.  

One evening in early February, I came home through the dark streets, thinking dark thoughts.  In our apartment, the main bathroom door was closed, and younger daughter's bedroom door wide open, the signal that she was taking her evening bath.

But where was the Resident Fan Boy? The living room was silent and deserted.  I turned right and entered our bedroom to take off my coat, still not seeing my husband.  I started to get a little alarmed.

Around the corner, there he was, on all fours, in the small dark passageway that serves as a walk-in closet, and leads to the ensuite toilet.

My heart nearly stopped.  It was less than two weeks after Demeter's accident, and I thought:  He's hurt; he's collapsing in pain or illness; he's ----- cleaning the kitty litter box....

On all fours.  Having scooped poop onto sheets of toilet paper he'd laid out on the floor.

"What on earth???" I shrilled.

I realized, in a slightly horrified flash, that, in all our years of owning pets - two of which have been cats -- the RFB had never actually sifted kitty litter. (How is that possible?)

Brushing this epiphany aside, I did a quick demo of how I balance the cat-box on the sink, and transfer the flushables with a trowel into the toilet, before sweeping out the cubby, where, judging from the amount of spilled litter, our cat evidently rehearses the burial of our lifeless corpses.

"I wondered how you managed every night," remarked the RFB.

Y'know, he could have asked.