Just Like His Namesake

So what did you do last night?

I came home and immediately felt that something was wrong. The dog usually has to heave her old bones out of the way but she didn't. Before I got the door open I had a moment of panic over her. She's really old, you know. She was standing right there, though, and she seemed fine. Both cats were right there, also seeming fine. About 5 feet behind the dog was vomit. Lots of vomit. Not the most vomit I've ever seen with these animals but a lot. Well, maybe vomit, but maybe...

Anyway, investigation yielded the following results:

It was a cat.

It was vomit.

It was the stupid boy cat, Elvis.

He had ingested approximately 6,000 mg of glucosamine in chewable tablet form that I give to the dog for her joint trouble.

For the record, the dog won't eat them unless I crush them up and sprinkle them on her food. The cat, however, loved them. Then he vomited what seems like most of them up in various states of digestion.

He seemed perfectly fine but I called the vet just in case. I made it clear that I didn't think there was a problem but I wanted to know if I should look for anything over time. I mean the cat has a relatively serious heart ailment after all. The receptionist was very kind and took my information and asked a doctor what I should do. She brought back a message that I should call poison control, there would be a fee but that's what I should do. So I did. When no alternatives are offered I'm very good at doing what I'm told to do. That fee is $60! Are you fucking kidding me? Nothing like being disillusioned and disappointed by the medical community twice in one day. So I hung up and called Pony Express. She called her pharmacist uncle who said that it shouldn't be a problem but it wouldn't be a bad idea to poke the cat every couple of hours just to be sure and since it seemed to have happened much earlier in the day (who says all those procedural dramas aren't useful, I can make a timeline from the relative dryness of vomit) there wasn't anything I could do, it would all be in the cat's system.

The cat is fine. I, however, had to clean powdery, artificially beef flavored vomit off the legs of my antique table so there was some crying.

The optimistic part of me would like to think that was just my 38th year going out with a bang to leave room for a fabulous 39th one starting today.

The optimistic part of me is very small.