This morning, something very strange happened: I woke up naturally. I stretched out in bed, rubbed my eyes, and tried to put my finger on the strange feeling I had. Even though I felt more rested than usual, something wasn’t quite right.
The apartment was quiet – all together too quiet! With a start, I realized that it was past seven and the kitty alarm wasn’t going off. Usually by 7:01 AM, the kitty alarm has her paws on my chest and is howling in my face as if the world is going to end. Usually, the kitty alarm is nipping and pawing at any exposed body parts that she can find, although she greatly prefers toes.
Surely, I thought, sitting up and jumping out of bed, Ripley is dead. No other force in the world would keep her from harassing me for food.
I speed walked to the kitchen, noticing well that Ripley wasn’t tripping me up and jogging ahead of me like she should be. Upon inspecting her food bowl, I saw that she hadn’t eaten her dinner from the night before – a phenomenon that is simply unheard of. I called her name and started looking under things to recover her corpse.
Alas, she was in the bathtub. Obviously sick and not wanting to be bothered.
Later that day, at work, I began receiving a string of emails from Ben, chronicling the different places and variety of unfortunate ways he had run into cat vomit. “On the couch,” he would write. “Don’t worry, I flipped the cushion.” And, later, “Everywhere!”
When I got home from work, I found a few new batches myself – under the coffee table, in the kitchen. It was some sort of terrible Easter egg hunt, if you replaced Easter eggs with enormous globs of something that used to be a Grade D chicken dinner feast with gravy.
Ripley seems to be doing a little better now – although the kitty alarm didn’t go off around dinner time like it usually does, she is back to hanging out with us and stealing Ben’s seat on the couch every time he gets up for something. We’re guessing it’s some sort of passing kitty stomach bug.
Seriously, though – how can she just throw up somewhere and then just walk away to throw up somewhere else? Shouldn’t kitties throw up by kneeling over their litter boxes? I could even hold back her whiskers for her.
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December 19, 2007 at 7:36 am
Laura
Awwww. This same sort of thing happened to my kitty not too long ago. He was over it in about 2 days and then it was back to his normal kitty self. I hope it’s the same case with Ripley.
December 19, 2007 at 2:06 pm
slurredpress
“Shouldn’t kitties throw up by kneeling over their litter boxes? I could even hold back her whiskers for her.”
hahahaha
That is genius. I felt like I was being tickled by a ghost after I read that.
December 19, 2007 at 2:16 pm
Mitsu
Aww, poor kitty. I hope she gets better soon. I know, cats just throw up anywhere they please! that was a good one though, about kneeling over the litterbox.
December 19, 2007 at 3:18 pm
smlwoman
I hope your kitty is ok now. My Sammy cat did a similar thing about a year ago, only he would be fine then do it again later. After 3 days, I called the vet and they said to bring him in. Found out he had swallowed string, lots and lots of string over time. It wound up in a ball between the size of a golf ball and a tennis ball. It was blocking his intestines. His surgery was $1500. I no longer have string around. Many people helped Sammy out with the surgery. Keep an eye out, if it continues I would take your kitty in. By the way, Sammy Cat goes around the room knocking things off the shelf when he thinks it is time for me to get up. So you have a pretty good kitty alarm. 🙂
December 19, 2007 at 3:20 pm
smlwoman
Oh, I also give my cat a lion cut. I thought it was funny at first, but now I think it is kind of cute. I thought I was the only one who did that to my poor cat. Cute, pic!
December 19, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Reality Writes
she probably just ate a bad bug.
My cat threw up for 2 days after heroically eating a bumblebee that followed me inside and stung me when I sat down with it on the back of my jacket.
but lately his favorite vomiting technique comes from eating all the ribbon on presents under the Christmas tree.
December 19, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Mairead
One of our cats did this last week but it was in five different places in the hour before I left for work. Even though I was there to clean it up right away, I definitely can’t get the unsightly stain off of my computer chair. She was over it by the next day–hope Ripley is too!
December 20, 2007 at 7:10 pm
SS
PS – you don’t have plants, do you? My friend Jess’ cat got really sick and couldn’t keep food down at all cause she got a new plant that was both addictive and toxic to cats…
But it sounds like Ripley is recovering…