Saturday, September 30, 2017

Feline Exercise Routine

I found a sad little Fourth of July pom-pom in a drawer today while I was looking for something else. We originally found it in the grass at the end of a fireworks show when Nick was five or so. We hadn't been generous enough to buy him one of those doodads that spun and thrashed tentacles and made an annoying whining noise. Some kid had lost her Fourth of July pom-pom. Nick picked it up, swatted Mike's leg, and wanted to know if he could keep it. He waved it around experimentally. He loved the Fourth of July pom-pom, he said, a Harry Potter wand, he said. Trying not to think about the transmission of germs or the fact that a dog could have peed on the Fourth of July pom-pom as it lay in the grass, we said okay. Mike took it from Nick, sniffed it, and handed it back. Smelled okay.

On the walk to the car, my legs were lashed with that Fourth of July pom-pom until I threatened to take it away. Nick clutched it in his fist. On the drive home, it repeatedly splashed my face as I sat next to him until the hour and the rhythm of the car caught up with him and he fell asleep.

At home, that toy was left on the living room floor and shoved into the bottom of the toy box, but it got new life one day when it came out of the toy box and Seth, then a kitten, heard the swishy-swishy sound of the strands of tinsel. When Nick held it in the air above Seth's head, he leaped, twisted, grabbed, and rolled about on the floor in paroxysms of ecstasy.  He loved the Fourth of July pom-pom. The problem was that whenever anyone left it on the floor, he would lie on top of it with his paws guarding the fluff like a kid holding a whole bag of Cheetos and he would chew on the pathetic tuft of tinsel that spewed from one end. It became his favorite forbidden toy.

Seth eats tinsel. He eats garland made of tinsel. He eats Easter Grass because it looks like tinsel and he eats Nerf bullets and anything made out of Nerf bullet material. I'm not sure why he eats these things, but a few years ago, there was a moratorium on tinsel and plastic Easter grass plus Nick and his friends were instructed to scour the house for Nerf bullets immediately after any Nerf war they had because of the effect on the litter box. The litter box by itself is bad enough but when there were hunks of tinsel or Nerf bullets wrapped in shit, I gagged a little while I was doing my work of cleaning it.

There was also the time I chased Seth around the house because from his butt, he dragged a strand of poop pearls clinging to a length of tinsel. I eventually caught him, but not before those turds had bounced across carpet, kitchen vinyl, the couch, the pillow on the couch, and even the coffee table.

Eventually, I used a pair of scissors to clip that tinsel instead of pulling it. My vet told me that if I pulled it, Seth's intestines could be gathered up at the back of his butt, get crimped, and kill him. No pulling the tinsel. Got it.

For years, we played with Seth and that ratty little Fourth of July pom-pom. When Nick played with Seth too hard and its plastic handle bent, I inserted a straw inside to straighten it. After playing, getting Seth onto his back, wrestling with the Fourth of July pom-pom, I carefully tucked it out of sight on top of my grandma's china cabinet where Seth couldn't find it and Nick wouldn't forget and leave it lying on the floor to be chewed on and swallowed in strands. Eventually, Nick got tall enough to pull it out to play with Seth for a bit and tuck it back in when he was done. And after a couple more years, we practically forgot about the old Fourth of July pom-pom.

When I first set up the downstairs bathroom for Blitz's arrival, I pulled out the abandoned Fourth of July pom-pom and tucked it into a drawer. It might be good for a middle-of-the-night romp. What kitten wouldn't love a ratty Fourth of July pom-pom with a straw reinforcing it's bent handle and some of the tinsel chewed off?

There it stayed for the better part of a year until just today, when I went looking for something in that downstairs bathroom drawer.

Sure enough, Blitz loved it, leaped, twisted, grabbed, and lay on the floor in paroxysms of ecstasy. Then Seth, after watching the fun for a bit, jumped in and grabbed the ratty, broken, Fourth of July pom-pom with some of the tinsel chewed off. You're never too old to play.

Thank you for listening, jb

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