WSET.com - ABC13How I Spent My Weekend or Apocalypse Of The Fleas

How I Spent My Weekend or Apocalypse Of The Fleas

Ziggy The Library Cat and I have a tense relationship.

Brought home from the pound five years ago, she has grudgingly tolerated my sharing what she obviously considers her space. I am allowed in the study unless she wants to sun herself in the window. Then I had best take my book and move along. Under no circumstances am I allowed to pet her. Or heaven forbid brush her!

The last time I attempted to brush the cursed cat, she bit me. Not just a little nip, a full-fledged bury-a-fang-up-to-the-gum line chomp. It cost me more than $300 in medical bills to cure the resulting infection. Apparently cats have notoriously filthy mouths.

I really wanted to kill the Harpie In Feline Form but my wife hid the ammunition. Lucky kitty. So imagine my joy when I was presented with a legitimate way to torture The Cat.

Late last week, my wife noticed the beast scratching a bit more than normal. She wears a flea collar, but a close examination found a couple of the little buggers picnicking on her underside. (To be clear, I was not the one allowed to conduct the inspection. This was left to my wife.) It was decided that Ziggy would be dosed with an anti-flea pill and confined to her carrier on the porch for a few hours while the place was fumigated and then vacuumed, scrubbed, etc. This is where the torture comes in. She hates the carrier.

She was starved for 12 hours to make sure she would eat the pill. The pill was hidden in her favorite expensive and very smelly cat food. After I monitored her consumption of the meal to make sure she actually swallowed the pill, I got to load her hindquarters-first into the hated carrier!

She squirmed. She yowled. She went into the carrier and was placed on the deck. Don't worry, my wife was watching so it was a shady spot and not the nice warm sunny corner I had picked out. I noticed her glaring at me through the bars of the door so I pulled up a chair, lit a cigar and enjoyed the show while the house was fumigated.

As I enjoyed my second cigar of the day, I found myself feeling sorry for the fleas. They were losing their happy home just so Ziggy could continue to molest the human race in comfort. Poor fleas. Eight hours later her crate was opened and the Queen Of Creation wandered back into her domain. She hopped up onto the window ledge in the study, so I grabbed my book and headed back out to the porch.

-Emmett Strode