Don’t feel like reading? Listen to me tell the story.
In 2017-18 I had the privillage of spending time with these two blind, geriatric, incontinent little bastards, sometimes sharing them with their parents, and sometimes as chief cat slave.
RIP Max xx
I am devastated to report that on Monday this week, Max left us at the ripe old age of 17 1/2 years.
He is survived by his Mum, Dad, and brother, Gus.
“He went peacefully and pain free, purring till the end. We are heartbroken,” his mother told me.
As a tribute to Max’s life this week, I thought I would resurrect some of my old Facebook posts and images from our time together. Warning: there will be poo…
New to chief cat slavery – June 2017
I’ve been living with these little champions for about six weeks now, but just as a housemate and occasional couch warmer for them.
Yesterday for the first time, I took on the role of chief slave with their Mum and Dad out of town which, as I found out, is not without its challenges…
One of my roles is chief bed warmer, and while this is not the first time I have taken on this role for bunch of other people’s cats, this IS the first time I have been required to have them IN bed with me rather than ON, because of the general shiteness of Melbourne winter weather.
It all seemed to be going fine. Everyone was in and SEEMED to be settling down, when all of a sudden it was ON! Apparently this was the time for an all out, under the covers brawl, with some signature screeches before one of these tiny panthers decided to clamp his teeth down on my boob and just not let go.
Hmmmmmmmm. I’m not sure how many of you have seen a cat’s fangs clamped down on your boob, or anything that close to your face before, but their vicious fangs are as big as skyscrapers, and as creepy as Freddy Kruger’s glove.
Mercifully I was able to release the fangs without drawing blood, and they chilled out and went to sleep without a worry in the world. I on the other hand, was not so lucky…
I was blessed with dreams of cats, Team America style diving at my neck with the aim of tearing my throat out.
Actually, it was more like that scene from Monty Python’s Holy Grail when the fluffy white bunnies go on a rampage, flying around the screen ripping everyone’s throats out…
Somehow I managed to wrestle these dreamworld cats away before they got me but it was pretty exhausting.
THEN they decided that because Mum and Dad get up at least an hour earlier than me, I obviously should too. There was much moving around, and jumping on and off the bed. But when it comes to getting out of bed in the morning, I don’t care how cute or annoying you are, I move for NO ONE. They may have been able to keep me from going back to sleep, but that is not enough to make me move…
When I finally jumped in the shower, that was the final insult. Didn’t I know the rules?? I was supposed to feed them before I did anything else (this is a standing rule at all times) so they rewarded me by sitting in front of the shower meowing until I got out.
Then when I did make it downstairs, they made sure I was greeted with a symbol of their displeasure in the form of some poo in the middle of the kitchen floor. So considerate of them to teach me like this!
They finally got their rain of dry bickies and chilled out a bit, ready for more cuddles while I was eating breakfast, which is always a super convenient time.
Only the four more days as chief slave. What could possibly go wrong??
I ate a lot of chocolate tonight…
I ate a lot of chocolate tonight. I don’t normally eat a lot of chocolate, but I did tonight. In fact every time I had to clean up cat poo, I had a bit of chocolate. I had a lot.
I used a lot of paper towels tonight. At the start of the night, the roll was full…
I arrived home to a couple of little presents and a bit of vomit. Aaahhhhhhh, she’ll be right mate! Mum and Dad are home tonight. They will take care of it after this! So a bit of dry reaching later, it was all done and I felt like I could feed them and myself. What a great substitute slave I am!! So the geriatrics don’t always make it to the loo the poor blind old bastards. Lots of self back patting for my selfless benevolence 😇
But no… that was only the beginning. One of the little bastards was going to explode over and over again. Everywhere… Everywhere…
On the kitchen floor, on the living room floor, on the couch, yup, that looked like a bit of drag arsing on the couch for sure, on the stairs, NEXT to the loo, I’ll probably still be finding it tomorrow…
First they were stealth numbers, and I would just find them where they hadn’t been before. Then came the noises. Like a tiny drain gurgling. That was never going to be good. That is the sound of solids turning to liquid…
Then, they want to come and sit on you, and you grab more paper towels and go in for fur surgery while trying not to gag more…
It wasn’t my chocolate. It was the stash Rog keeps too high in the pantry so Mich can’t hoe into them on her working from home days. But I needed that chocolate. I earned those chocolates. They were the only thing that could distract my senses from the never ending stream of poo and vom stimulus, threatening to induce some chunder of my own.
I was very happy to pick up their principle slaves from the airport tonight. Mich said it happens every… umm…. 《don’t say two weeks for the love of all things holy they are going away again in two weeks and I am stand-in slave again!》… month or so 《phew!》They seemed fine that the Favourites box and the paper towel roll were significantly lighter than when they left, and I was just glad I didn’t have to take those little exploding time bombs to bed with me tonight!
And now for a montage of the good times (you’ll be glad to hear, I was too busy dry reaching or stuffing myself with chocolate to take representative pictures for that story to inflict on you)….
They are NOT cute! – April 2018
Words cannot describe the feeling of lying in your bed, stretching out your bare leg, and feeling the touch of something cold and wet that really shouldn’t be there… As the cold realisation hits you, you throw off the covers only to be greeted by the sight of not one, but two big brown logs surrounded by tell-tale stains that look far too big to have come from one of the two most certain culprits…
After two days working from home and mistakenly thinking how many less ‘accidents’ seem to occur when I am around, I had intended to go into the office today, but with the clean up, trauma, and vomit inducing nausea, I decided it is prudent to stay home, deal, and get on with it…
I broke the good one!
I broke the good one! You know, the one who is not responsible for the plethora of ‘accidents’ around the house… Like the trail of nuggets leading down the stairs and into the kitchen that greeted me as I walked in the door this evening. No, the other one.
Usually there are two little faces waiting eagerly at the door when I come in, either because they really love me and want to see me, or because it is dinnertime. Could be either really… Whatever. But today it was just the poo machine waiting, making his characteristic dinner squawks as I walked in the door.
To cut a potentially long story a little shorter (uncharacteristic I know), after consultations with their Dad in Europe, I ended up at the emergency 24 hour vet with one poor little bastard having significant breathing problems. Not just the noises, but his little neck was visibly sucking in on both sides with each breath.
Now he is on antibiotics and under 24 hour surveillance from slave mama Claire in case I need to take him back for an x-ray or camera down the throat.
This really is the full service cat sitting experience.
Missing Gus
Naaaaaw. Max is missing his bro. Update: poor old Gus (formerly the good one) is in vet hospital over night, and having a CT scan tomorrow to find out what is going on with his trachea.
Max woke me up at 4am this morning to let me know Gus was struggling even more than he had been. That was it. No sleep for the rest of my life until that little bastard can breath again.
But Max is missing his bro. Sure, it is nice not to fight for each other’s food, or fight for pole position in bed, or on the warm human, but isn’t that half of the fun? Messing with your sibling??
Gus will be accepting positive vibes, religious sentiments if you are that way inclined, and brain flips so the prolonged vet experience is more fascinating and a change of scenery, rather than a terrifying horror, or alien probe film-like scenario… (he was most horrified by the thermometer… alien anal probes are real, and not a conspiracy at the vet!)
Enjoy the sedation little man and get better ❤ ❤ It might not LOOK like it, but your bro is missing you and he wants you back to mess with again 💋
To be continued…
Stay tuned for next week to find out what happened to Gus… INCLUDING some new stuff I didn’t put on Facebook at the time about that… and so much more…
Thanks for reading and/or listening. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please like, comment and share on social media. I’m on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin and my handle is @ClaireRWriter.
If you want to work with me, check out my website ClaireRWriter.com and book a meeting.
Until next time!
Nice cat slave
Wait until Part 2 comes out…