I’ll admit that I’ve always thought that the orange cat was our most boring pet. The dog is… well, the dog. And unlike the tiny cat, the orange cat cannot vanish like some kind of phantom, he hasn’t taken up residence under the house, he can’t make himself mysteriously have feet of lead which crush you when they step on you, and he doesn’t catch things. He does occasionally professional wrestle and he threw up on my bed yesterday after scarfing down all his food like it his last meal.
But, in general, he doesn’t do anything except sleep and walk around looking at things with a slight air of disdain. “Oh, you again. Oh, the dining room again. Oh, this mail on the kitchen counter again. Whatever. I only care so that I can locate the most valuable thing in the room and scratch it. And even that bores me.”
So, imagine my surprise to discover that the orange cat seems to have taken up plumbing.
(Not to get distracted from my story, but did I tell you that the Butcher has offered to adopt his friends’ cat? Why can’t his friends keep their cat? Because for reasons two vets haven’t been able to figure out, poop slowly leaks out of her butt! This would, apparently, not be a problem at our house because she could just live in the garage and outside. I still think poop slowly leaking out of your butt is a problem, regardless of where you live, but what do I know? Anyway, I have put my foot down in the semi-firm ‘no’ column. At least, I hope that’s the ‘no’ column. I’d hate to think what else might be semi-firm where a poop-leaking cat is up for discussion. They need to continue to try to address the problem. If it comes down to them having to put the cat down, fine, let it come live here instead. But we need to be the home of last resort. I say this only (and you can bet I’ll eat these words later and Rachel, don’t look) because I think that, if the cat were outside more (or at all), she’d be able to get some exercise and some grass down her and that could straighten things out. Meanwhile, continue to pay vets, friends!)
Where were we? Oh, yes, the plumbing.
It started when the recalcitrant brother and my dad were poking around in my walls trying to fix my leaking faucet and the orange cat got into the wall. We assumed it was just to explore (since we all knew it wasn’t to catch anything–slacker) and eventually, he came out.
Since then, though, every morning, he gets up and pulls the stopper out of the bathtub and contemplates it. Stares at it, sniffs at it, places his paw on it. And not in a playful manner, but like he’s really trying to get some information about how this thing feels.
And getting it out in the first place cannot be easy. It’s heavy. It’s hooked in down there someplace, and he’s got no real fingers. And I keep putting it back.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m appreciative that someone is working on my tub, but I’m a little worried about what the bill is going to look like in the end. He’s clocking a lot of hours on that job, let me tell you.