these carriers in the larger size, and I very highly recommend them. In fact, I’m going to go add them to the “recommended” page right now!)
Except that when I leaned over to drop her into the carrier, she went all starfish on me, and no matter how much I struggled, I couldn’t get her ass into the damn thing, and then she flailed around and being that she’s not a small cat (I think her insides are made of lead) I couldn’t keep my grip on her and she went flying across the kitchen, down the hallway, and upstairs.
“DAMN IT!” I yelled. Here I was, not particularly wanting to take the damn cat to the pet store (though she really had worn out her welcome with the screaming and the bitchiness) and especially not wanting to have to chase her ass around to force her into the carrier.
I went upstairs and started searching with her, starting with under the spud’s bed, which is where she first hid all the time when we initially let her and Joe Bob out of the room we were keeping them in. She wasn’t in there, wasn’t in the guest bedroom, wasn’t in the cat room.
“Where the hell’d she go?” I asked Sugarbutt, who seemed to be under the impression that it was Snackin’! Time! and if he followed me around long enough I’d stop this foolishness and give him a damn Snackin’! Time! snack. Sugarbutt seemed to neither know nor give a shit where Myrtle was, just looked up at me with big hopeful eyes. We walked into my bedroom, and saw that she was hanging out in the middle of the floor batting a toy mouse around. Apparently in the 90 seconds between the time she ran off and the time I found her, she’d completely forgotten what was going on.
She meowed up at me, then rolled over on her back.
I went into the guest bedroom, where we had one of the carriers, carried it into the bedroom where Myrtle was, and put it in the middle of the floor, expecting her to run like hell, maybe hide under the bed or in the bathroom behind the toilet.
She looked at me, looked at the carrier, and kept batting at the toy mouse.
I picked her up, carried her over to the carrier, and tried to shove her in the front. She became entirely liquid somehow, and flowed through my fingers and across the room, ending up under the bed.
“GODDAMN IT!” I said sternly yet kindly. “Sweet baby, I know you don’t want to get in the carrier, but you’re GONNA!”
From her spot under the bed, she appeared to disagree.
I stood and thought about it for a moment, headed for the bedside table to grab a can of compressed air, then came up with a brilliant idea. Myrtle, you see, is a sucker for the laser. She loves to chase the little red dot around, even if you (FRED) make her run around in circle after circle until she’s dizzy. So I got the laser pointer out and Myrtle came running out when she saw the little red dot and I had her do a few laps around the room, then pointed the light into the carrier, and like a big sucker she went halfway in the carrier and stared at the little red dot.
I ran over and pushed on her butt, knowing that she’d go the rest of the way into the carrier and I could shut the door and this story would be over.
Except that she liquified once again and reappeared on the other side of the room, giving me hurt looks of “I said I didn’t want to go IN the carrier, why are you being mean to me?”
A total of three more times I ran her halfway into the carrier and tried to push her in, and every goddamn time, no matter how suddenly I pushed her or how hard, she liquified and appeared elsewhere.
Finally, SICK AND GODDAMN TIRED OF THIS, GODDAMNIT, I ran the laser light up the side of the bed, and she jumped up onto the bed, and I grabbed her firmly by the scruff of the neck. She went limp and motionless, and I carried her over to the carrier, shut the front door of the carrier, opened the top door, and dropped her in (though she did kick out one of her hind legs in a starfish attempt) and then shut the top of the carrier.
And then I felt like an asshole because she meowed very, very sadly as I carried the carrier downstairs, out to the car, drove to the pet store, set up her cage, gave her some love, and put her in the cage. She immediately went into the litter box to hide.
I wonder if I’ll ever get to the point where I don’t feel like a complete asshole for taking cats to the pet store and putting them in cages.
(The only reason, by the way, that Joe Bob didn’t go to the pet store is because there weren’t enough cages.)
Y’all send happy adoption thoughts to Myrtle, would you? I think she’d make someone a great pet. Maybe someone who’s a little hard of hearing.
But of course. Why NOT hang out in the trash an and sniff the wall? What do you do with YOUR days?
Harbl: Aired.
Mission: Accomplished.