I am participating in 31 Days of Five Minute Free Writes 2019 (all of my submissions can be found here).
Today’s prompt is: WAIT
Today, I had to stuff our two cats into somewhat ill-maintained cages to take them to the vet.
We have been remiss about taking our older cat, Alice Cooper, to the vet. The non-vet stretch started while Wayne was laid off quite a few years ago, and I am ashamed to say it continued for reasons that probably make sense (some financial challenges while my father-in-law lived with us among them).
But there I was today, responsible for getting both cats into cages. (We are boarding them while we are out of town for four days and possibly a few more days so we can hold an open house.)
I am still a little worn out from the process, honestly! The cages don’t stay put together very well. Alice (the docile cat) kept escaping (or trying to) and Bella was just a vicious, hissing ball of black fury.
There I was, a huge rope in my hand, trying to McGuyver some combination of knots and rope that would keep Bella in the cage. I put a huge case of silverware on top of Alice’s cage so she wouldn’t get away.
I was pretty inept, and was contemplating calling my husband to have him come home and help me (not really an option as he works in town and I work pretty far out at home).
My mind is still spinning a little bit. I hope I didn’t injure fragile Alice, honestly, in the effort to get her to stay (Bella is pretty darn resilient).
I was stressed because the vet had already given us a bit of an extension to get them there (because they need to have vaccinations since it has been so long). I had to finish a work thing that just was going to take as long as it took.
Maybe I should have calmed down and waited before getting the rope and frenetically trying to put the enclosure together.
I must have succeeded, because I got to the vet (did I mention it started raining the minute I needed to take them outside?)
Now it’s them (the cats) waiting on us to get home. We all need the time apart at this point, I think (yet the house seems so eerily quiet …)
Wife of one, Mom of two, Friend of many. My pronouns are she/her/hers.
It’s like they know. My sister brought her two cats to my house the other day. Getting Oreo and Tigger back into their cages to go home was almost impossible. But we were finally successful!
They *totally* know! (One of them anyway.) All’s well that ends well – they are at the vet now and hopefully that will make showing our house a better experience for future buyers.