Boss HATES cats. I discovered this fact within just a couple of months of working for him. It was a topic that came up naturally, in the course of casual, relaxed conversation. But since Zilla didn’t have the benefit of a couple of month’s worth of casual, relaxed conversation with Boss, she didn’t get the memo that Boss despises felines.
Now, don’t misunderstand this chronicle to be a personal judgment call against cats. I’m not exactly a cat lover, but my lack of affection has more to do with discovering severe allergies to cat dander as a child, and having a Dh and a whole houseful of children who share that identical ailment. Nevertheless, we tried to have a cat as a pet several years back. She was a sweet cat, and she had a litter of the cutest kittens you ever saw….. to all of which we were highly allergic. As an alternative to tearing our eyes out , she and her brood had to go. We had given cat ownership the old college try, but we’re just not cat people. So please, no offense. But whether or not MY family loves cats is irrelevant anyway; I just wanted you to know where I’m coming from.
Boss’ hate does not seem to be allergy-related in any way. He just can’t abide cats. He doesn’t like how dainty they are, he doesn’t like how snooty they are, he doesn’t like the way their food or their litter boxes smell, how they bathe or how their hair floats in the air and clings to everything in sight. Maybe that makes him more aloof and unfriendly than the cats he blames for those traits, but you gotta give him credit for recognizing that he NEVER wanted to have a pet cat.
Zilla LOVES cats, and had been attached to the same one for something like sixteen years, a tiny little female that looked more like a kitten than a full-grown adult. Up until the very week before the wedding, Boss had no clue. How this morsel of information escaped him is beyond me, but given that the first instance he ever laid eyes on Zilla’s home was when they entered it to announce their engagement to her parents, and the first time Zilla ever glimpsed Boss’ home was in the short period of days between the engagement and the wedding, the subject of their respective pet preferences was apparently never broached.
Boss arrived at the office one morning and queried dully, “Guess what? Zilla has a cat ,” knowing that I would fully comprehend what a profound calamity this was for him. I surmised he’d just made this dreadful discovery via a phone conversation with Zilla, and needed to get it off his chest. “What are you going to do?” I asked, wondering if he’d somehow offer to substitute a cute little dog for Zilla’s cat , and pseudo-charitably offer for the cat to remain in the home it had always known. “Oh, it’s coming with her. It’s going to live with us,” Boss drawled thoughtfully, as though he was even then trying to hammer out a way to avoid it. Dh later admitted that he and Boss had some fun with the matter over lunch one day, when they each crafted appalling scenarious about various “accidents” that might befall the poor thing when Zilla wasn’t looking.
Definitely too kind-hearted to carry out any of those plans (I think), Boss resigned himself to his most dreaded pet scenario. Zilla moved her stuff over to Boss’ with a trailer. She set up the litter box and scattered cat toys to make Kitty feel familiar and secure. Kitty stayed with Zilla’s parents during the honeymoon, but once the happy couple came home, so did Kitty.
Poor Boss. It was quite an adjustment. Zilla put up the Christmas tree. Kitty took it down. Numerous times. She was either very playful or traumatized from the sudden move. Kitty was gnawing on the tree lights, batting glass ornaments around the house until they smashed into smithereens against the wall. No need for a cat bed. Kitty slept with Boss and BPzilla. Since Kitty was getting a little age on her, she wasn’t so fastidious anymore. Boss reported the abject horror of finding little chunks of kitty litter (and occasionally worse) on his pillow and in his sheets at night.
Now, if you really think about this, given Pregzilla’s germ-o-phobic status, the fact that she could even momentarily tolerate living with this cat is nothing short of amazing. Consider this: She couldn’t stand to sit at a desk at the office that wasn’t thoroughly disinfected, yet she had no issue with Kitty traipsing all over the house with litter-y feet. She later ripped out an entire roomful of carpet because of a busted light bulb, but stepping on a ralphed-up hair ball on the way to the bathroom at night was okay by her.
Except that Kitty wasn’t supposed to puke up hair balls. And she basically stopped attacking the Christmas tree and took to sitting, entranced, right next to it, stupefied by the lights. It was cute for a while, but then Boss and Zilla realized that something was wrong with Kitty. So, though they could ill-afford the bills, Kitty was taken to the veterinarian for treatment, again, and again, and again, and again. Kitty had some kind of surgery, even though she was growing elderly and the vet advised putting her to sleep. Then Kitty needed follow-up care, and expensive medicine. Kitty became incontinent.
By way of some sort of poetic irony, since Pregzilla was well, pregnant; BOSS had to be the one to change the litter, administer the medicine and clean up the accidents.
Finally, Kitty was admitted to the veterinarian office as an inpatient with, if I remember correctly, acute kidney failure. Boss was beside himself about the cost, and the futility, but he didn’t open his piehole about it because Pregzilla was beside herself about the cat. I mean she was hysterical. He couldn’t even discuss it with her. She refused to admit to herself or anyone else that her little cat, however dear, had attained its life expectancy. She seriously just wasn’t rational. But then, you have to take into account; it’s Pregzilla – is she EVER?
Days went past, and the poor cat got graver and graver. Boss was doing his level best to be compassionate as the bills mounted. Whatever emotional spectacle Zilla had made of herself, it had affected Boss to the extent that he wasn’t touching the vet decision-making with a ten foot pole.
Fortuitously for Zilla, they’d stumbled upon a vet whose policy was that as long as the patient’s family was willing to carry on with treatment, the vet was willing to provide it. They even tossed around the idea of securing a kidney transplant for that poor aged cat. I nearly choked on my staff meeting donut when Boss shared that with the office. And that would cost HOW much??? And Pregzilla remembers that she’s got a baby on the way, right???
Finally, late one night came a mass text message from Zilla. Kitty is an alias I’m using, because the cat’s REAL name is a people name. That people name was one I THOUGHT I’d heard attached to Zilla’s mother, so when I got the missive that “My dearest lifelong friend, my precious ‘Susie’ has left the earth and gone to be with Jesus tonight. She left into heaven from my arms at 11 p.m.,” I thought for SURE it was the unexpected death of Zilla’s mom. Poor girl, she was in the midst of raging hormones and first trimester morning sickness, was all emotional anyway over her dying cat and THEN her mom passes away. But I paused in confusion -- I suddenly feared that it might not be Mom’s name after all, but Kitty’s, and so, embarrassingly enough, I was pressed upon to shoot back a generic sympathy message that would apply to either bereavement, because at that moment, I couldn’t get hold of anyone who could actually give me the definitive info about the identity of the dearly departed. Let me tell you, crafting The Pregzilla Chronicles is a CINCH compared to trying to give expression to a note that is sensitive, compassionate and appropriate for the demise of EITHER a mother……..or a cat. Have a go at that yourself, just for kicks, and post your efforts below.
Pregzilla remained inconsolable and secluded in their home for at least three weeks following Kitty’s funeral. Boss and Zilla haven’t, to date, replaced Zilla’s beloved cat. And I think taking over kitty litter cake, at this point, is probably a really BAAAAAD idea.
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