Pussy Passing

I didn't think when I started this blog that it would ever involve a cat obituary, but I guess you just have to roll with it sometimes...

I had Toby put down today.  Anyone who has seen my relationship with my cat in the last few years will know that I sometimes got more than a little frustrated at his constant miaowing and clawing but I was surprised at how traumatised I was by his demise!

Through my tear-filled eyes at the vets, I was however impressed at the dignity and pain-free swiftness of feline euthanasia.  I would be lying if I said it didn't flit through my mind that this could be a good option for Nana, although as she is so near 100, I think we should probably give her a couple of months.

I had to fill in a form first to give permission for the act. I would like to think that it will be the first and last death warrant I will sign, but I suppose we never know what is around the next corner... (Mwah, ha, ha.) There was a tick box for what I wanted to happen to Toby after the event.  I went for (a) General Cremation.  I was upset but I do have the perspective that he was, after all, just a cat.  Option (b) was to take his ashes home with me but I had visions of them being found and duly eaten/rubbed in hair/scattered in the lounge by my sprogs.  Option (c) was to take the body home with me.  Erm, no thanks. We had a 'situation' when Shelley and I lived in the flat together where a pissed and well-meaning neighbour presented us with a dead ginger cat in a box and we all lamented over another bottle of wine until Toby walked jauntily through the cat flap.  "Can anyone else see that cat?" said aforementioned intoxicated neighbour.  I then had a dead cat in a box to deal with, so I don't want another one, thanks all the same.

I was actually too emotional in the vet's to pay.  No honest!  When I phoned up half an hour later to sort it out, the veterinary nurse was very, very gentle with me on the phone until I gave her by card number and she told me it was £99.  "Ninety-nine quid!", I shouted, "I was only bloody there for five minutes!"  The sympathy seemed to melt away quite quickly at that point.

Talking to the wonderfully sympathetic Anna on the phone a few minutes later, she gently enquired how I thought the boys would react.  I explained that I'd decided I probably just wouldn't mention it and hope they didn't notice.  As soon as the words were out of my mouth I realised that it didn't sound like the best thought-through plan.  Zak, Sebi and I therefore had a lively discussion on the way home from school about the loveliness of Cat-Heaven.  Tis amazing how inventive one's animal theology can become when put under pressure.

As I sit writing this, an enormous black cat has just nipped in through our cat flap and tried to get in the kitchen.  Bloody cheek.  How do they know?

"Word in the alley is guys that the old ginger one from number 12 has carked it.  Anyone fancy a recky to see if there's any food left out still?"  I bet Tobes turning in his cheap-mass-grave.