Eat, Spray, Love
You know what’s a lovely smell? Cat spray. It’s like the natural aroma of the Siamese jungle. If there’s a jungle in Siam, I’ve never been. Though I have seen The King and I.
Actually, cat spray doesn’t have an aroma, it has a pung. An earthy stench most closely related to stale urine covered in sticky maple syrup. Sorry to all of you who had to put your coffee down after that one.
Why bring up such an unpleasant topic? One guess. Our damn cat Shea, whose feral hindquarters have been christening our new apartment since we got here, causing the stock of Kids ‘N Pets to spike precipitously.
We first found Shea under the house we were living in in Pine Bush. He was uncollared, untagged and freezing cold and cried until we found him. We saved his cross-eyed, Barbra Streisand-looking face, and he loved us in that big, retarded, tom-kitten way of his. Our female cat Tess found a playmate, our older fixed cat Max found a new place to aim his resentment, and a new member of the family was anointed. Everything was swell.
Until his testicles started to explode in a testosteroney rage. He grew about 10 times his size, like the Grinch’s heart, and began mounting the laundry on a regular basis. All of a sudden, his “play” with Tess resembled the late-night fumbling of sex-starved teenagers at the drive-in. (If this were the 1950s, apparently. Timely reference, Brian!) Our little tom-kitten was turning into a tom-cat. With pimples and the beginnings of a mustache. And the sex drive of souped up Lamborghini.
Coinciding with our darling boy’s growth spurt was our move to a new apartment. Dealing with Shea’s burgeoning ball-sac had to be put on the back burner. We had to come up, somehow, with the money to pay off electric, cable, etc. while scrounging up a deposit and first month’s rent. With some creative accounting (and the help of a family member), we were able to pull it off. We stumbled into our new apartment exhausted and poorer than ever.
The whole deal was even harder on our cats. We live in an apartment complex and they can’t have the run of the place anymore. They had to go from inside-outside to inside only. Needless to say, they were a little on edge for a while. Boundaries needed to be set, claims made, territories divided. Apparently our front door and our son Conor’s bed have been commandeered by Shea, because he sprayed there like he had a runaway garden hose. Which, in essence, I suppose he did.
When we could finally afford it, we made an appointment with the local spay and neuter van, which collects its mewing victims at a Petsmart parking lot in Middletown. We stood on line with the other owners and stray-finders, talking about how our homes were beginning to smell like a WWII Parisian whorehouse. After VE day. With maple syrup. Ewww.
Mary El made with the Kids ‘N Pets and the steam-cleaner, fighting the battle to reclaim our front door (the mattress was beyond repair). After a few hundred passes, it almost began to smell like new rug again. Our wayward Shea returned to a brand new, unsullied home, minus most of his testicles and all of his mojo.
Or so we thought.
Shea’s mojo is apparently stronger than modern science, ’cause within three days we recognized the tell tale stank of the renegade male feline. This can’t be, we thought. He left the best part of himself back there in that spay van! They can’t grow back, right? Did the vet have bad aim? What gives here?
Apparently…having your male cat fixed is NO GUARANTEE that the sprayer will stop spraying. According to the internet, which is of course never wrong.
Okay, what!?
Seventy-five bucks to do right by the damn cat and we still have to live with a four-legged spray machine? What do we have to do, convince him he’ll make himself blind? He wasn’t raised Catholic to my knowledge, so I doubt that would work. Maybe we should have had him circumcised instead of neutered.
I am RIGHT NOW, as soon as I finish writing this, going online to buy more Kids ‘N Pets. I hope you can order it by the gallon.
pettiplays 
LOL over here. Still laughing. Loved it, If there wasn’t bad luck you guys would have no luck at all. I’m glad you always see the the funny parts of things. Love you guys.
That can’t be a picture of Shea. He looks nothing like a crossed eyed Barbra Streisand. Hope he doesn’t go blind.
That’s our Shea, looking like he was caught in the act. I guess the Streisand thing you have to see in person.
We have three male cats and one new puppy, and I can say with certainty that Nature’s Miracle is the best of the odor-eliminating sprays. They have a “urine destroyer” variety, too.
We’re also trying out a product called “Feliway” that is supposed to help reduce the aggressive instincts that make male cats mark their territory. Our three get along fine, but ever since we moved to Poughkeepsie a few years ago, they’ve decided that the litter boxes are only a suggestion.
We might try Nature’s Miracle. “Urine destroyer” sounds good, but we might need the destroyer, the submarine, the aircraft carrier and the rest of the fleet!