Kill Bill

Bill is the cat my husband gave me right after we got married. He was a girl for 9 months and then we realized that he was a boy. Male cat parts are harder to identify than male dog parts. So there you go. Nothing about Bill's life has been normal. Curt played too rough with him when he was a kitten - or maybe he was inbred - and he became crazy. Sixty years ago he would have been given a lobotomy. When he was younger, all it took to provoke him to lunge at your head was to make eye contact for more than a few seconds. Once when I got food poisoning he attacked me while I was throwing up in the toilet. Another time he jumped into the toilet while it was flushing. He did mellow out and at age 4 he's rather pleasant. My only complaint is that he regularly wakes me up at night by scratching doors or miniblinds and tries to get me to play. When my baby is sleeping through the night I should not then have to deal with the idiot cat!

Bill is an inside cat. For a brief season he lived with my folks while we were in England. There he got to experience the exciting life of an indoor/outdoor cat. My mom also fed him A LOT. He was living the sweet life when we packed him up and took his fat butt to North Texas. It was back to eating in moderation and living indoors. I'm too afraid of him being hit by a car to let him outside. Bill has escaped a handful of times. Last night we brought home our lovely Christmas tree and at some point he managed to slip out the door unnoticed. Jackson woke up at 2 a.m. and at that time we realized we hadn't seen Bill in a long time. Curt turned on the porch light and that little turkey came running in. He must have been so cold!

Curt immediately put him in the back room in his kennel. I know how ridiculous that sounds. But really, it's the only way to keep him from waking us up. This morning I went in to let him out of the kennel and I ignored the weird smell until he emerged sopping wet. Oh. my. gosh. Bill peed himself.

Bill slept - and marinated - in a pool of his own urine all night. Oh, the horror. Did he not know he could pee outside before coming in? Was he saving it for the litter box? I, coughing, heaving and gagging, picked him up and attempted to bathe him in the sink. His tail, wet like a paintbrush, slathered my arms with undiluted pee. (Pee smells so much worse when it's not in the toilet!) Curt sacrificed his arms to help me and even with both of us holding him down, Bill's soaking was barely adequate. We let him air out today, but tomorrow he may be getting a professional dunking at Petsmart.

I'm starting to think I need to let this cat outside regularly. Maybe then he won't want to play at night. And maybe then we won't have to put him in the kennel. And maybe then we will never experience cat pee in such a way again.