When it’s a Dantean hellfire outside, what could be more fun than dragging a scowling animal, in the car, to a place that he really hates?
Cat Daddy and I had hoped to delay this vet visit until just before our holiday, but Louis Catorze has been uncomfortably scratchy, to the point of breaking the skin around his eyes and ears. It’s not visible in the photo below but, trust me, in the right light it looks awful.
Catorze was chillingly and unusually silent on the car journey there, but let loose in the waiting room, where there was enough of an audience to make it worthwhile: us, two receptionists, plus a couple whose two trembling white cats were so tightly entwined in their transportation pod that we initially thought it was just one cat. Every so often, one of the white cats would unwind themselves, look out to see what the noise was all about, then return to the comfort of snuggling their sibling. I can’t imagine what Catorze was saying, but I imagine he was like one of those evangelical Armageddon people whom everyone tries to avoid – you know, the ones who stand in the street and shout, “The world is doomed! We’re all gonna DIE!”
Catorze is now down to 2.87kg, which is no surprise on account of the fact that it’s CST*; he’s been doing intermittent fasting for a while now, with his eating window being between 9pm and 1am. However, it seems that he was due another blood test three weeks after starting his thyroid medication, to determine whether the dose was right for him, and we didn’t do it. The vet may well have told me that it was required, but I forgot. Oh dear.
*Catorzian Summer Time.
I asked if he could have the blood test there and then, and warned the vet that it may have to be a two-person job. She replied that the vet nurse was available to help her, adding, “But then Louis is usually pretty good when he comes in, isn’t he?”
Cat Daddy: “…”
Me: “…” (Although it was tempting to respond with, “That must’ve been some other black cat”.)
Whilst they did the test, we sat in the waiting room. The couple that we’d met upon arrival came out from their consultation, the white cats having separated in their transportation pod so we could easily see that there were two of them. Clearly all cats have A Thing that they do when they realise that the torment is over. (Catorze’s Thing is just shutting the hell up.)
Catorze was returned to us after a few minutes, with the vet reporting that he didn’t bite or scratch during the blood test but was “very wriggly, quite the contortionist”. And, when they asked us to hand over the eye-watering sum of £452.39 (not a typo), I let out a whimper of such deep sorrow that the receptionist actually apologised.
We are now home, recovering in front of a fan and wondering how it’s come to this. Catorze, however, has gone gadding about outside in some unknown location, and is probably trying to work out an inventive new way of costing us money.
For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com
louiscatorze.com 
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