Cat washing is claws for complaint *
By Sheryl-Lee Kerr
(*a favourite column)
From a logical point of view, washing a cat should be a most
straightforward task: simply place the feline into a tub of water,
rub until fur is wetter than it was beforehand, add shampoo, rinse then
remove one dripping furred object.
Hmmm. I knew I had the technical ability - I had read an extensive
supermarket brochure about it. And the cartoon cat in their picture was
smiling from whisker to whisker, sitting perfectly calmly and
happily in the basin.
I also had the vital ingredient - one pussycat, namely Frog.
Earlier, this tubby layabout had, in her wisdom, decided the most beneficial
place for a stretch would be the greasepool in my drive.
And so it was we came to be in the laundry - she blissfully unaware she was soon to become the happy cat in the brochure.
With one expert hoist, she was carried to the tub, as I perfected
the “firm yet gentle’’ grip the brochure had paradoxically decreed.
There.
Frog was back to the floor in less than one blurred, furred second.
I’m not even sure if her splayed paws hit the water first but my
puckered arms and kneecaps bear testament to her speed.
Logically, I felt, this should not have been happening. I scooped
her up again and lowered her towards the water. This time, four clawed
paws shot out, clamping on to the top of the tub on either side, in
a rigid spider impersonation, her ironing-board-like body barely
centimetres above the water. Her black tail furiously swished an ominous
warning.
I decided a bit of sensible reasoning might help: “Frog, this is
for your own good,’’ I suggested. “Wouldn’t you prefer to be clean?’’
She blinked her green eyes at me in that snooty way only cats can.
Then, just as I finally pushed her into the water, she pulled out
her secret weapon.
“Mereoooowwww,’’ she moaned with ears flattening back, in a voice
so pitiful a thousand angels would surely have wept. Neighbors were
doubtlessly scrabbling for pens to take case notes for the RSPCA.
“Merrrroww.’’ My heart was breaking. I questioned my purpose in
life. Why, oh why, was I such a heel, so cruel, so evil?
Her eyes were now enormous. She seemed emaciated as the water
evaporated half her fur. As she looked up at me with another pitiful
mew she seemed to wail: “How could you?’’
My mind’s eye flashed between that smiling-cat brochure and my own
bedraggled pet. Curses.
My attention thus diverted by guilt, with Ali-like reflexes she launched herself from the tub, skidded through an ajar door in one sodden thump of a tail, her claws clacking quickly across the tiled kitchen floor in a sudsy trail of pawprints.
I sighed and followed the trail outside. It stopped, where else, but
at the greasepool on the drive. Sprawling in the middle of it, Frog
paused from licking herself and grinned up at me.
And, curiously enough, for one small moment she looked just like the
cat in the brochure.
© Sheryl-Lee Kerr & The Advertiser, 22 APR 1997