The Puddles of My Discontent

I am terribly afraid that beneath that wide-eyed junkie stare, my cat is smarter than I am.

But before the above statement makes any sense, I think I need to back up a little bit. Clair is a long-haired cat, and so it happens, from time to time, that I come across a barf that looks like a turd, but is really made of hair. Immediately I know two things, the culprit was definitely the cat I belong to and I have to clean it up (if the barf is green or contains animal parts, it was definitely the work of my aunt's cat), and it's time to haul out the ol' hair ball goop.

I actually own two different kinds of hair ball solution gunk. Am I a really conscientious pet owner than needs different stuff for slightly different hair ball experiences? Nah, I just lost the first one I bought and had to get a second one. Come to think of it, I own duplicates of quite a bit of my things. There's a reason I have 5 pairs of gloves and only the one pair of hands. I think my stuff may hide from me, only to pop out once its replacement has been purchased. I'm sure my belongings get together once a month to laugh about it too...

...Wandering out of the realm of my neurosis and back into the point of this story...

I lost the first hair ball remedy I bought, but I wasn't too sad about it since Clair didn't seem to care for it anymore. In the pet store, I found this stuff in a container shaped just like deodorant and it was so cool I might have gotten it even if I knew where the other one was! It operates just like deodorant too, except instead of being a white solid, it's goopy and brown. And instead of being applied to the under armular region, it gets smeared on Clair's front paws (obviously it's meant to be licked off, which is also very unlike actual deodorant...I hope.). It's brilliant, and with the help of my lovely Cat Holder, Pam, super easy.

Here's the part where my cat outsmarted me: I think she absconded with this fancy pants deodorant-esque hair ball remedy applicator and hid it from me!!!! Pam and I looked for upwards of 5 minutes and couldn't find the thing anywhere! At the end of Round One, Clair 1, Jill 0.

No worries, thought I, I know where the original standard hair ball goo is. I shall yet be victorious! With Pam holding onto my erstwhile baby, I splorped a little out of the tube onto each paw. I win! Clair 1, Jill 1,568!

For about 15 seconds that was actually true. And then Clair did this acrobatic mid-air karate chop and flung the remedy off her paws onto the floor! She then ran away, leaving behind two sad little puddles of hair ball glop. Final score: Clair 2, Jill 0.

The room is quiet now, Clair is in hiding (probably gloating with my sparkly gloves and single socks), and the Puddles of my Discontent have long been cleaned up. The sting of my defeat, however, remains.