Saturday, November 18, 2006

meow, etc

Several years ago I had a cat who was the unfriendliest cat in the entire world.

Now, in the past my cats have been my only family and they've been my only source of affection, so when Riley came my way and refused to even be in the same room as me, much less sit on my lap or god forbid, allow me to scritch her chin, I was devastated. The cat before her had been the sweetest thing, and she'd died after eating the end of a corn cob (I know. What the flaming fuck, eh? ) when the stupid vet heard me say 'coughing' each of the many, many times I said 'projectile vomiting' and so, missed the damn blockage in her inner bits, and the kitten before her, again, a total ball of fuzzy loving, had died while being spayed. I KNOW! LUCKY!! Jayzoos. Aaaanyway, Riley was antisocial to say the least, but even so, a parent knows when something is amiss, so when she yoinked up a furball one morning, I took her to the vet on the way to work. While the vet examined her, Riley snuggled into me and buried her head in my armpit and when he was done, kind of leapt into my arms for a full on cat-as-a-handbag experience. I was flabbergasted., so much so that I even said it out loud, "I'm flabbergasted" because before that day, instead of eyes, Riley had beaming rays of hate, and the vet said that of course she loves me, duh. A big ol' motherfucking lightbulb came on and I realised that she did love me, but in her way. That very moment I realised I'd been wasting time looking for signs of affection and love that I understood instead of recognising the signs she was giving me.

The vet told me to pick her up on the way home and then sent me to work with a pat on my head and the diagnosis "hairball" scribbled in Riley's notes. He called me about three hours later and was a little incoherent because five minutes earlier, Riley had dropped dead, just like that, three hours after I'd had this revelation about me and her and our happy little home.

Awesome.

If one believed in messages from the universe, which of course, I don't, ahem, one could possibly deduce that Riley was sent my way to teach me a thing or two about life.




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