Ode to my cat's nuts (in G minor)

Some of you know Sam.  He’s the Elephant House’s Warrior Tomcat.  He’s an old school Tom.  He has at least one other home, as he will go out on a walk-about, and come back four or five weeks later, well fed.  He is a serious brawler, collecting scars, scabs, and notched ears as badges of his courage.  I’ve seen the little bastard square off against 30 pound raccoons like they were nothing.  Possums and ground hogs are prey, and there is a 90 pound or so mix breed dog in the neighborhood that runs like a little bitch when Sam appears.  Not bad for a 12 pound cat.

Sam finally met his match last week.  He got chomped on a bit.  Given the fact I have seen him kick some serious ass way out of his weight class, I figure he must have been brawling with a small bear.  His paw got seriously torn up, and he came home to rest and heal.  It looked like he was healing ok, but Wednesday I noticed that his paw looked puffy and swollen, and he was suppurating, so I decided to introduce him to the dubious joys of medical care.

He occasionally wanders into the house.  Mostly he shuns the “citified” nonsense.  He is a Fierce Predator, and the outdoors is his domain.  I am the only person who has ever been able to pick him up and keep my intestinal track on the inside.  He does not suffer human foolishness gently.

When he was two or so, he decided to test me out and see who was boss.  He was pretty tough, having been raised, literally, in the shadow of the Elephant House.  Hell, there’s not much in the Elephant House that won’t fuck you cross-eyed given half a chance.  Our damn furniture has teeth.  Sam was pretty scrappy.  Fortunately, I keep a length of motorcycle chain in the office to deal with territorial disputes, and was able to convince him that my patience with foolishness was even shorter than his.  We’ve gotten along fine since then.  Anyone that believes chain whipping a cat in a fight is excessive has never spent any time around the Elephant House.  Seriously.

I stopped by the vet about 1 this afternoon to make arrangements.  They said if I could get him in right away, they could patch him up this evening.  OK.  No prob.  I stopped by Wally-World and bought a “pet taxi.”  What a stoopid name.  All they had were cheap-shit no names.  I bought a cat sized one.  Che was with me, and he suggested that I get a bigger one to make it easier to get Sam into it.  Hell with that.  No way am I letting that fucker build up some momentum.  He is empirically trained in Goju-Ryu  (think about the story of Splinter in the Ninja Turtles sagas.)  No way was I giving him room to work.

I got home, and Sam was chilling in his house that we attached to the side of the E-House.  He has a window that we open to allow him to saunter through and grace us mere mortals with his presence.  I opened it, and he saunter through to accept his due subservience and afternoon noshies.   I closed the window, and Che and I proceeded to box him in by shutting doors.  I set to assembling the POS cat carrier, and Sam decided that this action might have something to do with him.  He started sneering at me and got all sorts of agitated.  Once I got the box assembled, I surprised him by scooping him up and tossing him inside.  He promptly kicked the door off.  Seriously.  One shot.  Bang.  Door flying across the hall.  He made his first tactical mistake then, leaping out and diving into the bathroom.  I shut the door and he was Stuck like Chuck.  He promptly tore the shower curtain down to express his displeasure.  I think he dropped the bar on his own head, as he was a little unsteady when I dug him out of the curtain.

Once the box was re-assembled, I went to toss him in again, but he was ready for me, and slapped his rear legs out to stop all forward momentum.  I grew up around cats, and I know a thing or two.  I grabbed one of his Achilles tendons and gave it a light squeeze.  He rocketed into the box like his ass was on fire.

He cursed me soundly as only a Tomcat can all the way to the vet.  I called Boobie and let him curse her a bit too.

 Share the love, that’s my motto.

 Besides, she was pressuring me to get the cat neutered.  All the cursing should have been directed at her.  On a side note, all the Elephants were all solidly aligned against me, that I should have him de-nutted.  They were all citing “responsibility” and stoopid shit like that.  My argument “but that’s HIS JUNK!” was not well received.  I promised to investigate the cost and consider it.  Fuck that. “ Live and let live,” I really thought.

Anyhoo, we got to the vet’s, and I got him inside.  I explained to the vet that this was not the average housecat she was used to.  She pretty much blew me off with assurances that she “dealt with cats every day.”  I was not convinced, but just to cover my ass, when I was filling out the paperwork, I listed his breed as “Warrior Tomcat.”  Fuck ‘em.  You try to talk to some people.  I was still mostly concerned about the infection in his foot at this point.  The vet picked up the cat cage.  No sooner than she had hold of it than Sam kicked the door off again and headed for the hills.  No shit.  The door somehow flew completely off and hit the wall three feet from her leg.  It was immediately followed by 12 pounds of fluffy badass.  Realizing that the door was secure, Sam altered his angle of flight and headed into the window.  At the last instant he twisted as he sprung, and his hip slammed into the glass. 

You know, he must have done this before.

If the window had been single pane glass, he probably would have made good his escape.  As it was, the glass was a good insulated kind, and much to his disgust, he bounced off.  He was seriously bent sideways at this point, and perfectly prepared to re-negotiate our status-of-force treaty.  Pausing a few seconds, I pulled on my sap gloves.  For those of you not in the know, I occasionally work event security, and nothing says “nappy-time” to an angry drunk like eight ounces of steel shot sewn into the knuckles of a heavy leather glove.  The cat knows that those gloves are not a bluff.  As he ricocheted off the window, he landed in a fighting stance.  Once he saw me don the gloves, however, his attitude changed.  Backing into a corner, he put his most helpless-little-scared-kitty face on.  Fuck that, this was not my first rodeo.  The gloves stayed on.  The receptionist was oblivious, and was all “awww the poor thing is scared to death!”  The vet, however, saw Sam’s little attitude switch and figured shit out.  “I do this all the time, don’t worry,” changed to “we are going to have to sedate this animal to treat him.”

Sedation costs 50 bucks.

Scooping out the inside of his nutsack costs 55 bucks, sedation and an over-night observation included.

I heard bagpipes.

Those nuts are done.

Buh-bye.

The last time I paid to have a cat’s nuts ripped off, it was 1989, and it cost me 95 bucks.  What a bargain! The little bastard was fucked.

I stopped by at 4:30 this evening and checked on him.  He was recovered from his anesthesia, and innocently sharpening his claws on the cage bars.  I suspect that he wants to have a little discussion with me the next time I turn my back on him.

We’ll see…  If I show up to dojo construction Saturday morning looking like I French kissed a weed whacker, you will know that he sucker me in and dealt severe vengeance on me.