Feeding the Cat

This week has been a roller coaster of emotions, whirlwind of things to do, and all around stressful. With Mama being in the hospital, we’ve worried about Boy, the 27 1/2-pound anti-social cat. Boy can’t be boarded after his last event with the vet’s office. In fact, I’m sure they hate to see him coming and probably all don their snake-proof gloves. With her living so far away from me, it’s not easy to make a dash by her house to be sure he is ok.

She has her “going out of town” food routine with him that, as I’ve learned this week, when you say it out loud, people question your sanity. They also give you strange looks that I’m not quite sure if they’re pity or awe. Not the good kind of awe, either. It’s the kind of awe when you look at someone standing up in a grocery buggy trying to get the oatmeal off the top shelf at the Piggly Wiggly. As Mama explained this method of preparing Boy’s food, I began to think of ways that Boy could disappear. Ironically, so did everyone with whom I shared this.

Boy is on a special diet. It’s supposed to help keep him regular and keep his colon healthy. He’s only supposed to get a precise amount but when we have the “going out of town” process, he inevitably gets more. The vet says he needs to lose weight but doesn’t bear in mind that this cat was feral, and I mean extra feral, up until a year ago and was still this fat. He must come from a line of saber tooth cats that found their way to avoid extinction. They then mated with a raccoon and thus we have Boy. He’s not fat, he’s big boned. That’s a lie. His fat rolls swing from side to side like the swings at an elementary school playground during recess. When you look at him, you imagine a cartoon noise mimicking his walk going “Boom! Boom! Boom!”

This “special diet” he’s on consists of some fancy brand soft cat food, pumpkin, and Miralax. I was strapped for time and not wanting to leave Mama alone at the hospital so I asked one of my sweet friends to go get it for me. I looked online and saw that a local store had some in stock so I told her to run, not walk, to get it. This cat food is like Little Debbie Christmas Tree cakes. Nobody keeps it in stock. Well, as she learned, little old cat ladies will fight for it in the middle of the pet food aisle in broad daylight. My friend got the last case of this highly prized cat food that must contain cat cocaine and a little old lady looked at her deadpan, “Are you going to get that?” No, Ethel, she’s going to tote it around the store to taunt you. She told her she was and then the lady proceeded to ask her to see if they had some more in the back. My friend politely told her no and made her way over to the pumpkin aisle to find the last three cans marked down on a big sale. She grabbed all three cans and looked up to see Ethel. “Are you getting all of those?” she asked. Yes, Ethel, we are making cat cocaine pies with pumpkin as the key ingredient. The lady looked her up and down, sensing she wasn’t truly a cat lady but instead an imposter sent to disrupt the supply chain of the town’s cat food supply. My friend narrowly escaped with the prized possessions and it left me wondering if Ethel had a 27 1/2-pound cat with a colon problem, too.

But buying the ingredients was the easy part as we would later come to learn. This cat food is apparently made with the corpses of fish that has sat out in the sun until it’s really ripe and juicy. Even the chicken one smells like it’s made from zombie chickens. What parts do they really put in this food? On second thought, I don’t want to know. My friend offered to help me after I told her what all I had to do to prepare this delicacy. Mama gave precise instructions. Open the can of cat food. Pour a little bit of vegetable oil on top. Mix one teaspoon of the pumpkin and one teaspoon of the Miralax per one can of cat food. CAREFULLY measure. Scoop one large patty with one can then two small patties with another can on some plastic wrap then freeze. Freeze? In my freezer? Oh God. Let me be sure I get all of them and not leave one looking like a lone hamburger patty. Imagine throwing that in the frying pan after a long day at work.

We got an assembly line working. Mama always said the plastic wrap would sometimes stick to the cat food so I decided to spray it with cooking spray. I opened the food, my friend added a scoop of pumpkin, and I measured the 1/2 teaspoon of Miralax. I mixed the food, the pumpkin, and the Miralax and scooped it onto the wrap. My friend then took it and shaped it into a patty. We lovingly called them Pussycat Patties. Except we eventually shortened the Pussycat. She told me that no-one in her family would every go to this length to feed a cat and asked me about Mama’s mental health. I assured her Mama was fine but, for whatever reason, loved this cat almost more than me and I prayed he and I wouldn’t be fighting over the will one day.

Now my friend normally has a strong stomach and boasted about being able to handle most any smell. We now know that the fine print of that excludes this fancy cat food. We made it through several sets of big patties and small patties then the dry heaving started. “Bleyyyyyych,” she heaved. I couldn’t help but laugh. She waved the air in front of her face as if that would have removed the smell of tuna, salmon, and chicken corpses from in front of her. It just swirled them all together so that it could form the smell now known as the grim reaper. She stoically made it through making the rest of the patties then asked, “Why are we making one big patty and two small patties?” According to Mama, it is because the large one stays frozen longer thus making it where Boy can’t eat them all at once. Again, she stared at me like I was standing on top of a grocery buggy at the Piggly Wiggly. I just shrugged. I’m a good child. I just do as I’m told.

We stuck them in my freezer and I prayed that double wrapping them would not allow the stench to escape into the rest of my freezer. Nothing like tuna flavored French fries. I had to give them time to freeze so we waited until the next day to be the cat food delivery service for which Boy was probably tapping his furry little toes in anticipation. Just for reference, the Pussycat Patties will travel well frozen. When we arrived with the equivalent of a case of them, I put them out just as Mama instructed and put the extra in her freezer. “Don’t let me forget to tell Mama where I put these in her freezer. I don’t want her accidentally cooking one,” I said.

When I returned to the hospital, Mama asked me how it went and if Boy was ok. Yes, Boy was just fine. He was sitting on the floor next to my old bed looking like a melted ice cream cone with his fat rolls spilling over each side. Boy took one look at me and realized that I wasn’t his Mama so he went and hid somewhere else. I’m sure that took a lot out of him and he probably had to go rest. I proudly told her about how we had discovered a great new way to make the patties. She replied, “Oh, ok. They will just thaw faster that way.” With all the respect I could muster, I just stared at her with a smile. That cat probably eats Pussycat Patty Popsicles for all we know so it didn’t really matter. But, at least the cat was fed.