Wet Cat

I am not a person who thinks of her pets as her children. Mainly because I like to believe my children wouldn't be such jerks. Take this afternoon, for example, I opened the front door to discover that Alice had turned himself into some sort of swamp thing. Really, he was more mud than cat. I am assuming that he fell into the pond in our backyard. He did this several times when we first moved in, until he learned to maneuver on the stones surrounding it. I don't know if today's snow just made it slicker than normal, or if Alice decided he just hadn't been enough of an asshat lately, but today he obviously misjudged his footing.

I would have taken before pictures of the mess, but I was too busy wrapping him in every old towel I could find, and trying to contain him to the bathroom. I sopped up most of the mud, and then gave him a quick Silkwood shower, all the while trying to calm not only Alice, but Rita, who was yowling outside the bathroom door. Normally she acts like she wants to rip his lungs out, but when he seemed to be in trouble she was very concerned.

Here's a look at the aftermath:


Alice actually didn't behave too horribly during his bath. I think he was probably so wet and miserable he figured drowning was better than his current state. He even stood for it when I blew him dry, which I thought was seriously going to lead to a loss of blood for one or both of us. Now he is curled up under the bed, I'm sure thinking up the next way to annoy me. Oh, and Rita is growling at him.