I swore I would never have one in my house. Never again. Not\nafter what I went through as a kid. All the allergy problems. All the sinus\nproblems. The itchy, watery eyes. The sneezing. The constant runny nose and\ngeneral feeling of breathing sand spurs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cats! I swore I would never have one, and if for some\nunexplainable reason I did, I would definitely never have one IN my house. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m allergic to cats, and yet as a kid grew up with several\nindoor critters who made sure that heavy, red bags hung beneath my eyes. Teachers\nused to ask if I had been sniffing industrial strength solvents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I went off to college, and the haze of the world seemed\nto clear up, I figured I was done with cats, especially indoors<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I made it almost 25 years \u2026 until last week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That is when one of the adopted porch cats we inherited from\na deceased neighbor needed a surgical procedure to take care of a tumor on his\nforehead. The cat is a domesticated stray, pretty old, deaf and only has four\nteeth. He also had this growth on his head that he kept scratching. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So somehow we got it in our heads that we should have the\ntumor removed. When you\u2019ve had it rough, I guess we figured you deserve some\nlittle perk or pleasure in life, especially in your golden years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only, as our nice vet explained, this meant the cat would\nneed to spend over a week in a cone \u2026 in the house. The outside cat would need\nto come IN-side. Like OUR side. Where we live. And breathe. And don\u2019t allow\ncats. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The cat wasn\u2019t so keen on the deal either. He\u2019s spent his\nwhole life living on the streets and was more than happy to voice his opinion in\na way that sounded like haunted bagpipes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We setup a large puppy playpen in a front room. It\u2019s like a\ncanvas crate with lots of mesh windows and a top that can be unzipped for easy\naccess to feed and de-foul the enclosed critter. He\u2019s never experienced mesh\nbefore. Or litter boxes. Or post-surgery cones. Or that after using the litter\nbox you should definitely not drag your cone around in the gravel. It\u2019s now a\ncommon sound in my house to hear someone screaming: \u201cEMERGENCY \u2026 QUICK \u2026 POOP\nIN THE CONE!!! \u2026 POOP IN THE CONE!!!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since he\u2019s deaf, he has no concept about his own volume or\nwhat constitutes acceptable levels. It\u2019s hard to describe the yelps of a deaf\ncat in a post-surgery cone: something akin to a banshee and a cursing trucker\nhaving an argument. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first couple of nights when this car alarm-of-a-cat\nwould go off, we would run in expecting to find him in mortal pain or fighting\noff bandits. But this was just his way of saying he didn\u2019t care for the litter\nbox. (He found it uncivilized.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So we started ignoring the nocturnal sounds of the cat wailing.\n\u201cHe\u2019s fine,\u201d I would say to my wife in bed. \u201cWe\u2019ll check on him in a little\nbit.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only, one night it seemed to be growing louder, and closer,\nuntil \u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOH MY GOD!\u201d I screamed. \u201cHE\u2019S IN OUR ROOM!!!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was full-on horror movie. My wife and I jumped from bed to\nfind the deaf, screeching cat staring at us. Somehow he had managed to free\nhimself from the puppy playpen. He wanted breakfast. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019re over it. My sinuses feel like a piston engine\nmis-firing, I\u2019ve never changed so many litter pans and the cone will need to be\nburned after all of this. I\u2019m ready to go back to my pledge of a cat-free\nhouse. And luckily for me, the cat feels the exact same way. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I swore I would never have one in my house. Never again. Not after what I went through as a kid. All the allergy problems. All the sinus problems. The itchy, watery eyes. The sneezing. The constant runny nose and general feeling of breathing sand spurs. <\/p>\n
Cats! I swore I would never have one, and if for some unexplainable reason I did, I would definitely never have one IN my house. <\/p>\n
I\u2019m allergic to cats, and yet as a kid grew up with several indoor critters who made sure that heavy, red bags hung beneath my eyes. Teachers used to ask if I had been sniffing industrial strength solvents. <\/p>\n
When I went off to college, and the haze of the world seemed to clear up, I figured I was done with cats, especially indoors<\/p>\n
And I made it almost 25 years \u2026 until last week. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[575,555,563],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2019-nutshells","category-animals","category-houses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1996"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1997,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1996\/revisions\/1997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}