Liverpool Stories
Our house,(is a very very very fine house)
By
John Williams
I smoke, hate reality TV and lately, by exhibiting great personal courage, I have wrested control of the TV remote control, [zapper], from my hulking teenaged son, at least in the living room.
As a consequence my family members, i.e. those who actually give a damn about the denizens of the Big Brother house, the winners of Pop Idol or those poor bastards marooned on a desert island with nothing to eat except ham and eggs, invariably opt for voluntary exile to the parlour where they can enjoy a smoke free diet of televised garbage to their hearts content.
Another, much less salubrious consequence of my petty tyranny is that my family are made uncomfortably aware that our cat is a hedonist without equal and so prefers the sunny climes of the parlour where it periodically plays host to gatherings of fleas.
So, today, I was despatched me to the local vets to buy a remedy.
I asked the assistant if I could buy some gel, the name of which escaped me, but which I knew from previous outbreaks of `happy hour' had actually worked.
"oh," she murmured while staring at the computer screen," You need Frontline."
I nodded and reflected on the notion that the war on fleas was as old as time.
Turning to me she asked me for my cats name.
Aware that my interaction was being monitored by various pet owners I almost choked with embarrassment as I whispered,
"Ahem...Katie."
She typed in a command and Katies life history appeared. Christ, I thought, its just like being at my own doctors with only difference being that Katie couldn't read her own notes.
The assistant turned to me and said acidly,
"This is a prescription drug and since we havent seen Katie for a year I will have to ask the vet if I can renew the prescription!"
My jaw went into drop mode as I wondered what she thought I was going to do with a tube of flea gel!
I mean, I know that some poor bastards are hooked on the horse tranquiliser Ketamine, but I ask you, who the fuck gets off on liquid flea powder!
Eventually she returned and ungraciously handed me a box of the stuff and a bill for twenty eight pounds, with the snarled instruction that I would have to renew it regularly.
As I trundled home, still smarting at the fact that I had been made to feel like an abusive parent when I dont even like cats, I started to tot up the cost of keeping one as a pet.
1. Flea gel - Fifty six pounds per annum.
2. Whiskas chicken/duck/beef in jelly and assorted dried foods - three hundred pound a year.
3. Sticking plaster to cover incipient scratches/bites -one pound per annum.
4. Boxes of chocolates/flowers to mollify my neighbour whenever Katie decides to dine al fresco on my neighbours doves - approximately twenty pounds.
5. Cost of cleaning fluids to clean up the mess on the dining room floor left behind by eviscerated mice - two pounds per annum
6. Sundry plants uprooted by Katie in her search for the perfect lavatory - approximately twenty pounds.
7. A perfectly good apple tree destroyed by Katie's claws - priceless; for everything else there is no doubt Mastercard.
I cease my daft meanderings when I realise that it would be less expensive to donate to a charity that would guarantee a third world child fresh water for a year, probably with a pair of decent shoes thrown in.
I am now trying to think of alternative methods to rid Katie of her fleas. I have a small pond and I know that foxes will hold a straw in their mouths and then submerge until the fleas migrate to the straw.
However I quickly abandon that method when I recall that Katie's only previous experience of using a straw is of sipping daintily at her apres-ski of Martini and cream.
May 2007