My Spouse is Coming Home Again

“They have to eat.”

Ellie is still living at Loretta’s ( for which I blame the cats ) and this is getting harder and harder. In addition to her wanting “just to be home” and my wanting the same, the actual caring for the cats is starting to wear on her. They eat ( and if  you know anything about cats you know that means she feeds them ) pretty much every three to four hours, 24x7. So, yes, even overnight they are yowling, meowing and expecting food.

I say, “They’re spoiled. You’ve done it.”

Ellie says, “They have to eat.”

Friends have urged us to consider putting them down … “They’ve lived a good life and you’d be sending them to Loretta,” goes the thought process. Neither Ellie nor I believe that’s a good idea. Even though we blanch at the idea of taking them home, and there don’t seem to be any viable alternatives on the horizon, both of us prefer that to putting them down.

We visited the cats’ veterinarian, who has four cats of her own ( and is hugely disinterested in adding two cats to that number ), to try to get a handle on some of this. “I keep my door closed at night or I wouldn’t get any sleep.” That pretty much sums up the meeting. Oh, in addition, “You’ve rewarded them for their behavior so changing that behavior will be difficult.”

On putting them down, this vet subscribes to the American Veterinarian Association’s position: she will not do euthanasia for convenience – which is how she would see this because the cats are healthy. Never mind that we received the cats accidentally and neither Ellie nor I have every actually had any cats of our own, or had a desire for same. Were we to take them home and things not be going well after two weeks or so, that would change the “for convenience” tag.

So … unless something quite unforeseen comes up very quickly, my life will soon change dramatically. I will be sharing the space of which I have had exclusive (mis)use for over 10 months with both my spouse ( finally ) and two cats ( yikes, really? ). This is clearly very good news with a dose of bad news mixed in. ( If you’re not sure which is which, you have clearly failed to pay attention. ) I’ll keep you posted.

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