A Salmon Of My Own Making

We have three cats, Max, Poopie and Baxter. Max started to show signs of failing about six or eight months ago. He lost a lot of weight and seemed lethargic and unhappy, and it seemed that he was having trouble eating dry cat food. So I switched him to canned cat food, and he quickly settled on Friskies Senior Salmon Meal as his favorite. Oh he loves his salmon, and thanks to a can of salmon a day for months, he's put on a lot of weight and seems a lot happier.

But I wasn't giving any of the other cats salmon, because frankly it's messy and expensive and they can eat dry cat food just fine. But they can smell the salmon. Poopie is normally a pretty vocal cat to begin with, but when she thinks she deserves a bit of salmon, she says "wow" over and over with the monotonous regularity, and almost the volume, of a fire alarm. It's a psychic pressure that I'm unable to endure; I end up giving the cat who doesn't need salmon some salmon just so she'll stop making that noise.

So here's Max eating his salmon on the counter, and Poopie eating her salmon on the floor. Now in comes Baxter, the youngest cat, a healthy and lithe whippersnapper who simply pushes Max out of the way so he can take the greater portion of the salmon. So now I have to ride shotgun over the damn salmon feast to keep Baxter away... And at least twice a week I get salmon oil on my hands so I go to work smelling like a cannery.

Before I go to the store I have to inventory the salmon because almost nothing is as bad as running out of salmon. Seriously. Slamming my head in a car door is not worse than running out of salmon. Zipping a testicle up in my jeans is not worse than running out of salmon. Dropping a pizza face-down on the floor is not worse than running out of salmon. The only thing worse than running out of salmon, I think, would be actually dying.

It's a lot of trouble, frankly. But when I lie down after I get home from work, Max comes and lies on my chest and looks into my eyes and it's like he's saying "Thanks for getting me salmon." And I always think "It's nothing. Enjoy it in good health."

Then he hooks his claws in my surgical scar and makes me scream, but he's like that.