Neglected Cat Stories

(These are not cat stories I’ve neglected to tell you. Nor am I a neglected cat telling my stories. These are stories of cat neglect. Scenes from a Neglected Cat.)

I am the owner-caregiver of a long-haired little cat-beast named Paprikash. Handsome and I don’t call her Paprikash, except when the vet asks for her name. Around the house, we refer to her casually as The Beast.

There are pitchers of water that would outweigh my beast, but she’s quite monstrous when there’s no point of comparison. Full-grown and just about six pounds, Paprikash is an unusually small cat. (Chaco brought balance to our home by being an unusually large dog.) She’s dark and very furry, and fancies herself my protectress.

When she’s in my lap, I call her Mamacita.

The last week or so, I’ve been catching up on The Beast’s neglected grooming. This is a multi-phase process, you understand, because there’s an awful lot of hair, and it’s way out of control, far beyond the poor creature’s ability to groom herself. Her fur isn’t matted, but it’s long, and soft, and training for matted. I’m so pathetically behind on her care that I’m not even trying to complete the grooming job in one sitting. Half the time, I’m just trying to stave off further decline.

After finishing with the beast, I require a change of clothes, there’s so much hair everywhere. I wear dedicated beast-brushing clothes for the task. Clean-up after every session so far has involved a broom and dustpan, rag and cleanser, so that my office doesn’t look like an unkempt beauty parlor with clumps of stray hair everywhere.

This morning, while brushing her, I noticed that in addition to the snarls of beast hair sticking to my beast-brushing shirt and the clumps drifting like soft, miniature tumbleweeds across the office floor, there were multiple tufts of fur stuck to the wall facing us. On. The. Wall.

I thought that was the height of excessive hairiness until I felt a clingy beard of fur begin to collect around my chin.

Our grooming sessions only last so long, usually just until one of us has had too much and walks away in disgust. (It’s not always me.)

But I love that beast. I know she’s looking out for me. The Little Mama. Good Beast.