the washing of the norb (0)
Posted 29 November, 2004 in animalia
yesterday morning, when gunnar woke me up for his breakfast, i noticed his feet were dirty, and that he had a few spots of grey on his back. i knew what this meant. sure enough, when i went into the living-room, i found the fireplace screen had been moved, opening an entryway into the place norb and goo think of as the Fun Cave of Dirt.
goo didn’t seem so bad, so i decided i would wash him later. kitty wipes seem to have no effect on fireplace soot, so i knew i’d have to lather him up with cat shampoo and rinse him. he hates this. the alternative, though, was him licking god knows how much dirt off his fur, and possibly getting sick.
i went back to bed for a while. the norb was comfortably ensconced at the end of the bed. when i woke up, though, o showed me the true extent of the damage the black soot had wrought. there were little grey pawprints across the tops of both of our pillows, and a large black spot down at the end of the bed, where the norb had been sleeping. i had petted the norb earlier, and my hand had come away with a layer of soot on it, but since the norb’s fur is black and grey, exactly how filthy he was had escaped me. he must have rolled around in the fireplace; the spot on the blanket where he’d been lying was thick with dirt.
we washed our sheets and blankets, and then it was time to wash the cats. goo was the first victim. he whined and struggled as we lathered him, but then seemed to calm down after we’d rinsed him and rubbed him dry with a big towel. outside, the norb could hear gunnar complaining, and he scratched at the bathroom door and miaowed at us to let him come see what was going on. this got him inside the bathroom, which was a good thing, since he was next up for washing.
knowing how much the norb detests water, i tried to go easy on him. at first, i moistened a kitty wipe and went after him. the wipe was blackish-grey within seconds. it was time to wash the norb for real.
washing the norb is a two-man job. he is a big boy. o laid out some towels on the floor and held the norb. i lathered up a washcloth and went to town.
oh, how the norb hated it! he screeched and growled and hissed and struggled. as i lathered him, i could see the suds quickly turning grey. the norb was so dirty! finally it was time to rinse. i grabbed a cup and ran the water till it was warm. then we doused the norb. we put him in the bathtub for a while to try and minimize the mess, but the feeling of running water on his feet freaked the shit out of him, so we took him back out. as the water sluiced over him, he shrank to half his size, revealing quite a svelte norb under all that fur. when he was thoroughly wet and we were running our hands through his fur, rinsing it, he became very quiet and looked very sorry for himself. there was so much soap and grime that it took a while to get it all out. halfway through the endeavor, the norb peed in the bathtub. o and i felt awful. perhaps we had traumatized the norb, and from now on, whenever he saw us, he would cower and pee. or perhaps he just saw all that water and figured now was as good a time as any.
when we had gotten the water to rinse as clear as we could, we wrapped the norb in a big fluffy towel. some cat books suggest blow-drying your feline when you have finished washing it, but norb had suffered enough indignity for one day. we tried to get him as dry as we could, but he’d found his voice again, and he let us know exactly how much he hated us right then, screaming and striking at our hands like a pissed-off cobra. we let him go. i went into the living-room and saw that it’d taken us an hour to wash him.
after sulking under the living-room table and compulsively grooming himself for a while, the norb emerged, seemingly none the worse for wear. goo came over and checked out his big cat-brother to make sure he was OK. they touched noses. we kept an eye on the norb; if he wasn’t dry enough by bedtime, we would see if we could subject him to the blow dryer. we didn’t want him to catch a cold. but every time he wandered in and out of the room, he’d air-dried a little more. he got fluffier and fluffier until he was the regular-sized norb once again. he even let us pet him goodnight, though he didn’t come sleep with us.
tonight i am going to find two very large, heavy objects, possibly the bocce set and a big iron vase, and put them against each side of the fireplace grate, blocking the entrance to the Fun Cave of Dirt. i do not want to go through last night’s experience again. washing a very dirty, very angry 16-pound cat is not easy.