The Cat's Meow

I should start by saying that I got a cat; then I should immediately follow with, I got rid of the cat 5 days later. And this brief relationship between me and the cat has set into action a chain of events.

For starters, if I hadn't gotten the cat, I wouldn't have been bringing the cat back last Thursday night. And I wouldn't have driven my car 30 miles out to Prince William, VA and I wouldn't have parked it where it was parked when it was the victim of a hit and run on Friday morning and lost its driver's side mirror. I also wouldn't have had to call the cops on Sunday night when I realized it had been hit.

Last Thursday night was also the source of a significant amount of stress, which caused, what I am now calling, my stress elbow. On the way to Prince William, VA, I noticed that my left elbow was very warm - much warmer than the rest of my body - and swollen. The following day it was still quite warm and now painful to the touch. I lived with the elbow like this until today when I went to the doctor - even he was disgusted.

Here's how the doctor's appointment went:
Him: So you have a cough or something?
Me: No, something's wrong with my elbow [I take it out and show him].
Him: [crumples his face in disgust] Wow, look at that.

He went on to tell me in a very salesman-esque fashion why he suspected it was just an inflammation. He ended up giving me some anti-inflammatories and antibiotics. Afterwhich, here's the good part, he took his pen and pointed to a portion of my elbow and said, "If it goes beyond here, call me immediately." He then proceeded to draw a circle on my elbow with his ball point pen. Who gave him the right to start doodling on my body?

Now I know that the cat didn't cause this condition in my arm, but I like to think that it was triggered by stress and thus a direct result of the cat and since the doctor wasn't exactly sure what it was either (thanks doc!), I'm taking it upon myself to say what caused it.

Now let me back up to the cat. He was a great cat. Really - if there were ever a cat for me, this one would be it, but maybe I'm just not a cat person, or an animal person at all. This cat was hindering my ability to eat (because he'd stick his nose into whatever I had) and sleep (he cried all night and jumped on me all through the night). Two of my major life functions!

In Cats For Dummies, it said that to train a cat not to jump on the bed you could take a can of pennies and shake it at the cat. I settled for a coffee travel mug full of assorted change, which I in turn slept with and shook it every time the cat woke me up. I am sure it was an amusing sight. Once he stopped jumping on the bed, he started crying. So since I still wasn't getting any sleep with the cat, I locked him in the closet. But not a regular closet. It was a full walk-in closet, with food and water and access to his litter and of course access to my freshly washed towels which he liked to sleep on. Now we were both happy.

This brings me to the next problem with the cat - the litter. If he wasn't crapping down the side wall of the litter (and just barely missing the box), he was kicking up litter all over the bathroom. Who knew cats crapped so much? It was a mess. I had to wear shoes to the bathroom and I was constantly cleaning up litter from everywhere.

I think the cat is in a better place now - with another owner. The good news is that Petco has a fantastic return policy and I was able to return all of the cat supplies I had bought! And finally get some sleep.