The email reminded me that it was that time again. A rabies shot and other fluffing up was scheduled for one of our cats, namely the one we call Brother. I know that it’s not much of a name, but it was all that came to mind at the time. He’s one of the offspring of the infamous little guy that I began feeding about two years ago, who turned out to be not masculine at all, bringing four kittens to the table in March of 2018. Three of those kittens have now taken up residence, at least temporarily, during the hours that please them … in our house … on our beds.

Taking Brother to the vets should not be a problem. When he was younger and a bit more adventurous, he would come home with significantly missing fur and bleeding wounds which generated a great deal of anxiety on my part. How could this happen to our sweet little boy? I mean, who knows what goes on at night with the outdoor/indoor cat? My neighbor thinks that he hangs with a rather ragtag group of some disreputable history that live in a barn off of Slocum Avenue.

His wounds required professional help. So, off Dr. Megan at Animal Wellness we go. He was like he always was, mellow about the whole thing. He did not object to being put in the carrier at all. Never even made a sound on the way to the vet’s which, if you have a cat, you know is unusual.

This time, his appointment was early, at 8 a.m. So, thinking that past experience was the model for current activity, we ignorantly attempted to place one two-year-old mellow fellow cat into the carrier at 7 a.m.

Not a chance.

Accompanied by terrified screams, Brother used all of his appendages to become bigger than the opening to the carrier. Squirming like a wild cat, all of his claws at the ready, we let him go, perplexed at our inability to do what had been so easy before. He was terrified. We were close to terrified too, wounded both in body and spirit. What was going on? Fortunately we had closed the cat door, so he couldn’t get out, but our house is a wonderland of hiding places for felines.

After we tended to our wounds, we took a breath. There was still time to catch and crate this rascal. We began our search, calling him by name, which he typically refuses to recognize except when there is food involved.

Being members of a higher species, or at least a species with more cash, we did have one weapon on our side, a box of yummies … Temptations, also known as “cat crack.”

“Shake the box,” my husband said. Dutifully, I did and, sure enough, Mr. Scaredy Cat showed up looking for his fix. And, because evolution has given us some lead in the treachery sphere, we grabbed a bath towel, threw it over the Temptation-obsessed cat and, with the carrier in an upright position, pushed the still objecting cat in. Locking the door of the carrier, we both had to take a few breaths and check for more wounds.

Apparently Brother had found his voice, because this time we did hear the feline versions of operatic musings all the way from the village to the intersection of Route 20 and Lee Mulroy. We kept assuring him that he was a good boy and that everything would be ok. Who were we kidding? This was an almost primal method of our finding our sanity amidst the cacophonous meowing.

Twenty minutes early, we just sat in the car and took more deep breaths until the office opened. We all survived and made it home with a quite disgruntled cat. After an hour or two of giving us the feline version of the stink eye, Brother returned to his normal self, this time with a new flea collar and a clean bill of health.

 It was a tense hour or two and we felt that we had earned a reward. It was too early for adult beverages, so the humans had to settle for coffee and donuts … our version of yummies.

Still, we can’t relax. You see, we have three other cats that need the same fluffing up, one male that needs to me neutered and one Mama cat that needs to retire her maternal meanderings as well as one kitten that defies any attempt at being caught. We are not good at trapping cats. In fact, we are the poster persons of “epic fails.”

My mind wanders back to when I felt sorry for the little gray cat and started feeding it. How does the saying go? “No good deed goes unpunished?”

We are most certainly getting too old for all of this.