Conference misery::feline_v1

595.0. "...and best of all, *FREE*!!" by CSSE::MARGE (Save the males!) Mon May 25 1987 19:14

Reprinted without permission:
    
"Kittens: Cute, Clean and $1,141.50"
 By Susan Spehar
"The New York Times" Sunday May 24, 1987

Kittens.  The classifieds were full of advertisements for adorable, 
cuddly, fluffy, baby cats.  As I skimmed past the columns of 
kittens, looking for good deals on household items, I realized the 
best deal was staring right at me.  My daughter's birthday was just 
weeks away and we still had not decided on a gift.  But here it was 
-- an adorable free kitten.

No more waffling between dolls that talk and dolls that walk.  No 
more nightmares about life-size teddy bears with remote-control 
tape recorders.  No more debates about where we could squeeze 
Barbie's dream mansion into our starter home.  It was a perfect 
idea.  Not only would a cat appeal to my child's love for the animal 
kingdom, but also having it would teach her lifelong lessons in 
responsibility.  And, I reminded myself gleefully, it was free.

I bounced the idea off a few of my cat-owning friends and received 
nothing but positive responses.  Cats are affectionate.  Cats are 
clean.  Cats take care of themselves.  I became convinced that this 
was the ideal present and decided to get two: one for my daughter, 
the other for my son.

"Why not?" my husband said.  "They're free."

Four weeks later, we were the proud owners of a red litter box and 
matching scoop, a bag of cat litter, a bag of cat food, a basket 
lined with red gingham and two precious male kittens.  My children 
were ecstatic and so was I.

But my first trip to the veterinarian was almost as much as a shock 
as was my first visit to the obstetrician for my uninsured 
pregnancy.  The distemper shot (The first in a series of three) cost 
$25.  The stool check was $10.  The rabies shot was $25.  And there 
was a new vaccine for feline leukemia -- "Your cat's No. 1 killer," 
the pamphlet read.  This breakthrough in scientific know-how was a 
mere $30 for the blood test and $22 for the vaccine (the first in a 
series of four.)  Of course, if the blood test came back positive, 
there was no cure, and the $22 for the first vaccine would have been 
wasted.  But what's money compared to the life of your cuddly cat?

The two cats came to an astounding $456.  Feeling faint, I asked the 
vet if that was it.  "Well," he said, "you might want to 'fix' one 
of your cats because it's not healthy to mate siblings."  One of our 
carefully chosen males was a female.  I opted to neuter the male, 
which would cost $40, in stead of spaying the female, which would 
cost twice that.  Besides the cats would be kept inside.

For a time, life with kittens seemed to be just as my friends had 
suggested.  But my house smelled terrible.  "It's not the litter 
box," I swore to my husband.  I changed it daily, doing the job that 
made my animal-loving children gag.  It was not the litter box; the 
cats were not using the litter box.  These immaculate creatures each 
had found favorite corners of the house.

After many conversations with the vet, hours of research in the 
animal section of the library and a wall-to-wall carpet cleaning 
($145), I ddecided that each cat needed its own litter box.  For 
$6.50, I bought a blue box and another matching scoop, and the 
problem was solved.

Winter set in and we all enjoyed the distraction of the cats during 
the days inside.  And then, one icy November morning, the female 
slipped out the door.  Frightened by my hysterical children, she 
climbed to the top of the tallest evergreen and settled in for what 
was to be a long siege of mewing.  I did everything I could think 
of.  I jiggled a box of cat treats under the tree, waved an open can 
of tuna out the second-story window, called her by every name in the 
book in the sweetest, most cajoling tone I could muster.  I even 
tried to climb the tree, a leftover chicken leg clenched between my 
teeth.

I called several fire departments only to discover that firefighters 
don't "do cats" anymore.  "But she's only a baby, and it's freezing 
out there," I begged the chief of a neighboring town.

He told me, heartlessly, I thought "She'll come down when she's 
ready.  How many cat skeletons have you seen hanging from trees?"

Infuriated and desperate, I called a tree service company.  To my 
relief the company sent a man who strapped himself to my tree and 
climbed 60 feet to get our pet.  The charges came to $55 and once 
again we settled down to the routine fo daily life.

Not for long.  No one hd told me about fleas.  No one had told me it 
was virtually impossible to get rid of fleas.  After a $25 visit to 
the pediatrician (confirming that my daughter had flea bites, not 
chicken pox), a $40 visit to the vet for flea baths, and a $150 
visit from the exterminator, I knew about fleas.  With all the facts 
in hand, I decided that in our new house (the one with room for a 
Barbie mansion), we would let our cats live outside -- even though 
we'd recently spent $224 declawing them.  

We are now settled in our new home.  The cats and the children enjoy 
the freedom of a dead-end street.  We still spray for fleas and go 
in for yearly shots but $1,141.50 later, the worst seems to be over. 
Our cats are beautiful, silky, gray creatures who purr lovingly 
into my ear even now.

And it's spring again.  Time for tulips and yard sales and kittens.  
I tally up my expenses for a week's worth of ads in our four local 
newspapers advertising our own unspayed female's cute, cuddly, 
fluffy kittens.  For free, of course.

    Boy, did that bring a smile to my face!  Chauncey's vet bills far
    exceed the ones for those two kitties...and I paid several hundred
    dollars for the privilege!!  Fortunately, I only needed one litter
    box (with a matching scoop...).
    
    Mary