It’s late, and I just finished writing Sunday’s column and organizing scads of art lesson plans into something coherent enough for other teachers to understand. I’m listening to Coldplay on my headphones, and just happened to look over to see my two insane little beasties grooming each other in the middle of the floor.
We have two other insane beasties, of the canine variety, who think the highlight of the day is drooling and licking their own butts. But if I have to give a prize for the Most Psycho of all Apted Animals, it would be awarded to her high-maintenance highness, Miss Lily.
The poor thing has some sort of skin problem that’s sent her to the vet a couple of times; both times we were told that she was just a hyper-groomer, sort of a feline form of OCD. Then they put her on kitty prozac—no kidding. My sister insists that if we take her to the exclusive, cat-only vet she uses, they could probably get to the bottom of why Lily does this. Maybe that’s true. But I know it will set us back several hundred dollars, and frankly, I’m afraid it’ll just be another, more expensive route to a fresh prescription for kitty Prozac.
Anyway, ingesting all that hair each day means that hairballs are a frequent occurance. And that’s one reason why I get so aggrivated when I see her grooming her brother, Max!
“Gee,” says Lily, “I don’t think the hairball in my stomach is quite big enough yet. Lemme eat some of your fur, Max! Nummy nummy nums!”
She’s like the OCD cleaning person who can’t visit a friend without tidying something. She’s even been known to gnaw on our hair and lick our arms, trying to groom us too, I suppose.
The thing is, the kitty Prozac didn’t work. I wonder if there’s a kitty Zoloft or Wellbutrin…maybe some kitty talk therapy?