Try keeping a cat in one place while you are poking it with a needle

Seriously. Try it. Then you will know what I go through twice a week with Smokey, the cat who is occasionally possessed by demons, usually at night when I’m trying to sleep. Smokey is Rob’s cat, but I claim him as well because the actual definition of ownership is struggling to get a cat into a tiny carrier, walking it to the vet while it screams, protecting it from your other cat who thinks it smells weird and attacks it when it returns home and exits the carrier, feeding it, cleaning up after it, holding it at night because it thinks it is a teddy bear, and yes, administering an IV drip for it while singing to distract it.

Don’t feel too sorry for Smokey. Despite being nearly 16 years old, he usually behaves like a kitten on crack, running through the apartment at top speed to get to…another room. And then running back again. Oddly, though they eat the same food every day, he is nearly 10 pounds lighter than our other cat, Emma, but this doesn’t stop him from trying to fight her for domination of various pieces of furniture. He eventually wins by pushing her big body off of things.

About a year ago, Smokey was diagnosed with kidney disease, which is why we have to shoot him up with subcutaneous fluids. And by we, I mean I. Rob tried it for awhile, but the result was usually Smokey streaking out of the kitchen and Rob yelling profanities, while trying to stop the IV bag from leaking all over the place. He was perfectly fine with handing over the responsibility. And Smokey knows when it’s going to happen. He will suddenly disappear and I have to go find him in one of his hiding places and drag him out of it. It’s tons of fun. Even better, Emma has become comfortable enough with the process that she will come into the kitchen while it’s happening in order to mock Smokey. So, while I’m trying to hold him still and keep a needle in between his spindly cat shoulders, I also have to swat her away with my free hand to get her to give us our privacy.
When Rob goes out of town, for some strange reason, Smokey feels the need to crawl back and forth across me while I am trying to sleep and the only way to get him to stop this is to put an arm around him and let him sleep with me. I am actually getting used to this, which is just bizarre, though this week he would not lie still and I finally had to kick him out of the room. He proceeded to cry on the other side of the door for 30 minutes until I let him back in again because he was DRIVING ME INSANE. Rob chooses to use stories like this as examples of what kind of parent I will be (a lax enabler who can’t enforce rules.) His interactions with Smokey usually involve throwing the cat into the air and letting him land on the bed, twirling him around and then fake-punching him. I use these as examples of what kind of parent he will be (in fact not a parent, but another child.)