for a real one
EXIT STAGE AUTOMOBILE
Our Lola cat, the softest smallest sweetest kitten, was shrinking. From 10 pounds at adoption in 2008 to a good long healthy period of 6 – 8 (it’s not nice to keep track of a lady’s weight, however), and then 4 and then, terrifyingly, less than 4, which made her look a bit like something you’d see scuttling across the floor in a horror movie. Sorry Lola, we always thought you were beautiful, even when you became an adorable skeleton encased in not-very-clean fur and having you on our laps was an exercise in Ouch Something Is Poking Me and Maybe I Should Change My Pants.
You see where this is going. Every vet visit they would draw blood and then come back into the room a little shaken; these kidney values are the worst they’ve seen, how is your cat alive right now. Even the blood-analysis machine was appalled and flashed AM I CALIBRATED CORRECTLY? across its screen. One of the sterner vets medium-gently said we “start thinking about some advance planning” and I found that phrasing darkly funny because does Lola have assets we don’t know about? A 401(k) somewhere? Charities she’d like to support?
You cannot have a severely elderly pet, particularly not a bug-eyed bag of bones like dear sweet Lola, without thinking about their death and when you’ll have to help them to it. Lola always like Aaron best—at the shelter she was the one who picked him (after the cat I personally was interested in adopting scratched the shit out of me and ran out of the room—bye dude, I hope you found a tolerant family)—and so when he was home on college breaks we discussed the probability that at some point Lola would have some sort of health crisis, and he’d be three hours away, and LT and I would have to make that final trip. But in the meantime, we were in no hurry. Lola may have looked a fright but she still ate her food (and made many attempts on ours, particularly if it involved cheese), jumped up to sleep on her heating pad, and hissed at her brothers if they were dumb enough to start shit.
Before I get to the main event, I should mention that Lola hated the vet. HATED. THE. VET. She was a sweet little dainty kitten of fluff until some bitch-ass veterinarian was dumb enough to try to handle her, and then she transformed into a HOLD MY EARRINGS CATCH THESE CLAWS Jerry Springer guest. You could hear her screaming all over the building. After a few visits like this, the office started suggesting we give her a few of Rocko’s gabapentin to chill her out enough to be examined. That was a standard wary greeting, when we would bring Lola’s carrier into the office for an appointment—”Okay, we’re ready for Lola—and how many milligrams of gabapentin has she had today?”
(After one particularly unpleasant Lola exam, the plaza containing the vet’s office had a fire and closed for several months. Coincidence? I DO NOT THINK SO. YOU FUCKED WITH THE WRONG LOLA.)
This past weekend was bad. After a few days of refusing food but still eating treats, Lola stopped wanting even those. We went and bought all kinds of weird soupy watery cat food things that sick cats are supposed to like. Nope. She stopped drinking water. Then she stopped being able to walk or stand up. I put her in a plastic storage bin with a towel and we called the vet to bring her in for the Big Sleep.
LT drove, and Lola was so out of it that I didn’t even bother to put her in a cat carrier, just held the bin in my lap. We were probably halfway to the vet when she took two weird breaths and then died. That’s right. Lola hates the vet so much that she decided to die on my lap rather than go in that building.
The vet did a stethoscope confirmation, had us fill out the cremation paperwork, promised to send pawprints and whiskers and all that jazz. I left my storage bin there because a cat had died in it, but I took the towel. And then we cried a lot and I moved all my meetings for the week because I can handle computer work but I don’t really feel like talking to people.
Aaron is sad but stoic, and I think is a little impressed that the old lady said “oh fuck this” and went out in her own way. Murphy is an oblivious teenager, and it is hard to distinguish Rocko’s everyday depression and trauma from situational depression and trauma. However, I am giving him extra love and therapy sessions.
Tonight please pour one out for Lola, your little tiny friend (just kidding, she never liked you much).
—mimi smartypants