A Dash of Rosemary: Sharp Dressed Man... er... Cat

When I left the condo this morning, Sophie and Gizmo were peacefully napping on the balcony. Blatantly rubbing it in that they don’t have any responsibilities and telling me that I should just leave because I was harshing their collective buzz.

But I knew that I’d be back. Mwahahaha!!

See, Sophie, my very expensive baby girl, currently has this hot spot on her belly where she cleans it excessively. Last fall when this happened, the vet prescribe the “Cone of Shame” to keep her from getting at it.

But it was just to pathetically funny watching her bump around the ‘do in it. So I took his other suggestion, which was to put her in a Onesie. She didn’t particularly care for the Onesie, but she tolerated it, as it was preferable to the alternative.

(I figured that if looks could kill, I wouldn't have made it past last Thanksgiving.)

Now, flash forward to spring, and we are back at it. The problem with the Onesie is that the only workable way to put a cat in it, is to have its neck hole at butt and tail area, which means that in order for there to be a place for her head to come out, she has to wear it sarong-style… and although it would stay on for a while, I would eventually find it on the floor and her running naked and free!

Amazon – the seller of all things wonderful – suggested to me, in its list of “Things You Might Be Interested In” list, that there’s this thing called the “Suitical” which is basically a Onesie only for animals (i.e., an appropriate number of holes, spaced strategically.) It’s rather pricey, but I got one for her, thinking it would involve less struggles in getting her “dressed.” Ha!

She had been wearing her outfit – BTW, it only comes in camo… really!? – anyway, she wore it all weekend, and we took it off of her last night to let things breathe. Which is why this morning, she was playing dead on the balcony, just hoping I’d leave for work so she could have the whole day free. What she didn’t know was that Mom was going to wash it this morning, and I (not having my usual Tuesday lunch date) was going to come home over lunch and shove her fuzzy butt into it.

As I left work, I told my co-worker to wish me luck. I don’t think she did.

I arrived home, and running to greet me at the door is my beautiful fuzzy girl. By the time I drop everything and make my move to nab her, the synapses in her walnut-sized brain have connected (Mom’s home for lunch + Mom never comes home for lunch + I’m out of my outfit = RUN!) Now the wise thing to do before starting the nabbing process would be to close all doors. We were not wise, but we will be next time. First she runs for the balcony. That’s fine, there’s a finite amount of places she can hide from me, but they’re all under the chairs and lounge chair, and while I’m moving chairs and trying to reach for her, she runs inside. To Mom’s bedroom. Under Mom’s bed.

Mom brings the dust mop, we shut the door, and I get in my catcher’s position. I can’t possibly describe the Laurel and Hardy-esque things that happened then. Just assume that it involved Sophie, running in and out of our grasp, and both me and my “older” mother on the floor on our knees. Eventually we caught her. Her little heart was a pumping and despite the air conditioning, I was sweating.

I held her in my death grip while Mom squirted the anti-biotic spray on it and we shoved that fuzzy butt into the camo suitical. Hair a mess and dripping in sweat, we were successful! And I looked forward to returning to the (relative) calm of the office.