Today we took our cats to the vet.
Time for their one-year distemper booster, and a rabies vaccination... Which of course, shouldn't
be any big deal.
Except, of course, they're cats.

I fervently believe that cats have a Seventh Sense.
I mean, we all know they have the basic five - Touch, Taste, Aural, Visual and Olfactory.
Then there's the widely held notion - widely, that is, by anyone who's ever owned a cat - that cats
have the Sixth Sense, the ability to know your thoughts... That which drives them to want to
spend time with you when you don't want to, or not spend time with you when you do, or one of
however many hundred things they seem to know that just makes your day more "interesting".
And then there's the Seventh Sense.
Yes, thats right. Cats, at least in Domestic Cats one would imagine, possess an innate ability,
beyond ESP, to sense when a vet visit nears.

Perhaps they know how to read your mail, and when that little card comes with the cute fuzzy animal
on it thats clearly doped to the eyeballs everytime it see's a vet, they know whats going on.
Or perhaps they understand the human language far better than we believe, and when they hear us
on the phone saying lines like 'So when can Muffy come in to get her booster shots' the feline
brain translates, much like the famed Babelfish, into the horrifying truth of 'So when would you
like me to trap my cat, stuff her in a pet carrier, drag her to you, and then allow you to inject
her with various vile concotions using a rusty 6-inch nail?'.

The simple fact of the matter is, when you need to take your cat to the vet, they're never to be
found. And when they are found, they know. They look at you with an eye filled with pain and anguish,
pleading with you 'Why?', leaving you with an unsurpassed feeling of guilt.
And then you get your cat to the vet, and immediately it forgets who you are, and hisses and growls
at anything that moves in the room, while digging her claws into you just to make sure in case you
happen to let go, she'll remain stuck fast to your chest.

The secretary will no doubt elongate this tolling time of anxiety while talking to various other
people on the phone, lining up other visits to the House of Horrors, making fun of people who want
to know about the West Nile Virus and swapping Pumpkin Splat recipes.
All while your cat is vibrating in terror, and looking around at the next thing that dares come close
so it can be neatly dissected with three razor-sharp claws.

Finally the vet will see you now, and you take your creature in to The Room. By this time your cat
is seriously balding from Nervous Hair Loss and has lost bladder control.
The vet will then tell you about all the new improvements the medicines have, and how it gives them
a shinier coat, strong bones, supple muscle and gas that can conveniently strip the paint off your
walls.
The victim, er, cat is placed on The Table and swiftly injected with all manor of psychedelic
coloured elixirs, between times she will squirm, hiss, growl and scratch at the hand that holds
her down - naturally yours, as the vet sure as hell won't be doing it.
Then come the mandatory ear-drops, which the vet deftly squirts into each ear, massages, and then
turns away at precisely the right moment - naturally without warning you - so that the cat will
shake her head and thoroughly cover your new shirt, face and/or glasses with God only knows what.

And then after all of this, you can pay your $90 bill and take your cat home where she will
forget of your existance for the next three hours.
And then, later, come slinking along and expect a gruelling 40 minute petting session whereby
afterwards you'll both be friends again.

Until next years Leukemia shot.