Meow Mix, Meow Mix, Please Deliver

Here's the deal. My cats are my kids right now...my sweet little retarded darlings. Because Speed and I don't have kids, we are free to spoil the bejeebus out of the cats, who show their gratitude by breaking everything we own and eating Q-Tips by the truckload. Charming really. One example, legendary to most friends and family, is the Grand Drama of Cady and the Yarn. Cady ate about 18 inches of yarn, which turns out is REALLY bad for cats, because it gets all gunged up in their system and can even act as a saw inside of them, wreaking all kinds of havoc. So after two visits to our REGULAR vet and Cady throwing up on everything we owned, we took her to Tufts Veterinary Emergency Room. Many of you may not have enjoyed the Tufts Experience, but it costs about $185 just to walk in the door and have them look at your animal. It's best to just hand over your credit card as you walk in, and they'll give it back to you when it's a tiny melted blob of goo, having charged eleventy billion dollars to it. Their facilities are spectacular, but still.

Two grand later, Cady came home after having emergency surgery. GOOD. TIMES.

So okay, we're now clear on the whole cats-as-kid-substitute concept, great. I COMPLETELY ACKNOWLEDGE that we're kind of above and beyond your standard pet owner, and I am okay with this. What I really want to share with you, however, is proof that no matter how nuts I may be, there are crazier people out there.

A coworker brought up a cat catalog today which is of a genre I receive a few of, that being "Catalogs for People Who Get Their Cats Stuffed and Put Them on Their Mantle When They Die." This is a side effect of online shopping...there is no way to stem the tide of catalogs. The one I have in front of me is called Doctors Foster and Smith and it achieves a certain level of amazing + horrifying + incomprehensible. Here are a few of its offerings, which I hope will shed some light on the dark side of cat ownership.

OMITTED: the seven pages of Kitty Condo type products (ranging from $100 to $400), and roughly 25 pages of cat beds, including cat hammocks and heated cat beds.

This isn't so weird in concept - it's a fuzzy pad with catnip in it - but what in the blue hell is this cat doing?? Why is it SWIMMING? What the? Oh, and PS, you can own this for FOURTEEN FREAKING NINETY NINE.
This is one of many products designed to let your cat frolic outside without being eaten by coyotes or running away from your clutching, needy embrace. This one folds up and pops out for easy transport! Let me ask you this...when was the last time you personally had fun in an enclosed outdoor space big enough for you to spin around with your arms out and not much else?
I'm sorry but this is insane. It has AWNINGS. AWNINGS!
I guess sometimes it's not enough to have fun in one place outside, and you just have to take the show on the road. Sometimes I think I want one of these so I can get some exercise en route to the vet, but then I remember I live in Holden and would perish under the tires of a Volvo. Plus, the cats go to the vet what, once or twice a year, depending on yarn consumption?
Yeah, I tried putting a collar on the cats once. Flyboy started having what looked like some kind of epilleptic fit, and Cady hit the deck and stayed flattened to the ground until we took the collar off. I don't even begin to want to know what would happen if I tried to put a HARNESS on either one of them. This is for people who walk their cats. I used to work with one of these people. I still don't get it.

Okay, I clip the cats nails, with something much like these little orange jobbies, but is it really necessary to have a set that looks like it could take you to space? I guess I shouldn't knock anything that makes the clipping experience easier...I have to lull the cats into a false sense of security and then ambush them with a towel to wrap them up. There must be some other way...

MARY MOTHER OF GOD! Okay, seriously? If you can't use either the towel method or the slinging the cat under your leg method, how in the hell are you going to get your cat in a SACK? A SACK! I mean, the main problem with owning cats is that they are not stupid. Our cats know the carrier and know what it means, so we need to leave it out in the living room or something for a couple days so they calm down and think we're not taking them to the vet. Same deal with the towel scenario...it's an innocuous household object that they occasionally sleep on. Why would this be menacing? However, if you have this distinctive item, that looks like nothing else and serves exactly one function, your cat is going to REMEMBER it and run like hell into that one corner that goes down a wormhole in your house and you can't get into for the life of you.

Oh, and if you don't like sleep, the Benevolent Doctors Foster and Smith have some possessed kitten sculpture to keep you up at night.