Them's Fightin' Words

I tweeted on Saturday that after 15 years I think I have finally figured out what they were feeding “Smelly Cat”.

Yeah, I know. Is that the best I can do? A post about cat shit? Well, I didn’t leave my flat all weekend so it’s pretty much the most exciting thing that happened to me.

See, J-Rab works as a vet nurse so she often brings cats home that she can’t bear to leave in cages all weekend because they are sick, wounded, or in the case of our newest border, pregnant.

It’s a pretty neat arrangement. We get to pretend we have a cat until he or she is better and we’ve become nice and emotionally attached and then the cats get adopted by other people and we spiral into a week-long catless depression.

Substitute the cat for a love-interest and it’s like half of a cheesy rom-com. At first I can’t stand the cat; it’s irritating, it does things that infuriate me and it generally turns my neatly ordered life upside-down.

Then one night, I come home from work feeling down and fed up with life and the cat gingerly climbs up into my lap, looks up at me with its deep, all-knowing green eyes and says, “It’s ok man. I’m here.”

Then it’s all fun and games. Me and the cat pal-ing around the flat, watching TV together, sharing a glass of milk, stalking each other around corners, playing with the string-on-a-stick toy cats just can’t seem to get enough of, passing out together on the couch after too much whisky, good times I tell ya.

Then the cat gets better and we make the tough choice of giving him or her to a better home, one where he isn’t confined to spending his entire life cooped up in a two-bedroom flat, watching the world go by from a second-story window.

We hand him over to the new owners, smiling and making jokes about how much quieter it’s going to be without that little fleabag terrorising our flat at 3 in the morning because he’s spent all day sleeping curled up on his favourite couch in the sun.

We wave goodbye, knowing we’ve done the right thing. Back at home we find the string-on-a-stick toy half under the bed. Two nights later I come home from work and call out to the cat as I walk in the door, force of habit, but obviously nothing calls back.

Pretty sure that’s not going to happen with our newest feline buddy though because to put it bluntly, her shits smell so godawful, hell itself holds it’s breath every time she daintily lifts her tail and squeezes out a brown tube of concentrated evil.

On Saturday J-Rab and I were dividing and conquering – she was at the grocery store and I was handling the washing when it happened.

The litter box is in the spare room, which is coincidentally also where we keep the clothes horse. I’m not wild about the idea of being in the same room as anything taking a shit so I was naturally a little weary when I saw her climb into the litter box and start scratching around.

Next thing I know she assumes the position and proceeds to drop not one, but four largish turds in rapid succession.

I watched in abject horror as the last one squirmed out, my feet glued to the spot by the macabre spectacle of it all which, in retrospect, was definitely the wrong course of action.

What I should have done was gotten the fuck outta there as fast as humanly possible. I should have bolted out the flat, through the front gate and down the street, my slippers slapping furiously against the pavement and my dressing gown flapping in the wind because MY GOD, THE SMELL!

For the next FORTY MINUTES it was like I was living INSIDE a gigantic cat shit. Nowhere in the flat was safe. Eventually I was forced to hold my breath, grab the cat litter, throw the sliding door open, stash the litter box on the far corner of our balcony, throw the sliding door closed, exhale, and turn the ceiling fan on full.

Thanks to that near-death experience I can now say without a moment’s hesitation that the answer to Phoebe from Friends’ song “Smelly Cat, Smelly Cat, what are they feeding you?” is PILCHARDS!

DO NOT feed your cat pilchards if it shits inside. Seriously, I think a lung might have collapsed as a direct result of inhaling the toxic fumes from that cat’s putrid shit.

In conclusion I can safely say that this could very well be the first foster-cat we’ve taken in that I won’t be sorry to see go.

Not so sure about its kittens though…

Christ, what a softie

-ST