My Cat Needs Valium... or More Sandwiches.

I stumbled out of bed this morning (as I do every morning) to let my dog outside. I usually slide my abnormally small feet into a pair of size 2-½ slippers, grab his leash and prepare to head into the frigid terror that is my backyard. My dog takes forever to go to the bathroom. First, he checks the cat’s dish to see if there’s any food left behind for him. Then he proceeds to look for the cat (or other unsuspecting critter). When he can’t find any creatures to traumatize he finally begins to project excrement. This process is by far the longest of the bunch.

On this particular day, while trying not to freeze to death and fall asleep simultaneously, an absurd creature crawled out from underneath my deck. My cat, Poe, had somehow managed to get a zip-lock sandwich bag stuck on his head. I mean, it was WAY on there.

I’m pretty sure it was there for a while too, because it was full of condensation from his breathing and he seemed like he was getting less airflow to the brain than usual. Being the caring and concerned pet owner that I am, I laughed at him before proceeding to stand there for an exaggerated amount of time, trying to figure out how it could have happened. Then I remembered he was nearly asphyxiated and I should probably muse over his motives at a later point in time.

Let me tell you, he didn’t look any better with the bag OFF his head but at least he could breathe.

I returned to the warmth of my smelly little apartment and began to ponder how something like that would have even happened. I came up with two viable possibilities:

ONE: My cat is suffering from Major Depressive Disorder-- due to semi-recently becoming an outdoor cat-- and in a psychosis fueled delusion, assumed I no longer loved him thus deciding to make one valiant effort to kill himself.

TWO: He was really hungry and there was a sandwich in there.

The third and not at all realistic scenario involved his trip into space in which his oxygen was eventually depleted due to a malfunction in the hyper drive. You may ask what the hyper drive has to do with the life support systems, well, nothing but that doesn’t stop me from thinking it. I assume that he was then forced to breathe what little air was left in the zip lock lunch bag he had packed until he arrived safely home. Upon his reentry to Earth, he realized he was far too stupid to remove it.

Well, with my cat saved from death, I was feeling pretty good about myself. I mean, really. I just saved a life. I think there’s a new profession in my future…