So we took Jake, our lovely new pet, to the vet last week. By “we”, I naturally mean “Katsumi”, who was the whole reason we took Jake in in the first place and therefore bears the brunt of any unpleasant or inconvenient cat-related chores that need doing. I had to work, the cat’s as big as my leg, and no way am I about to wrangle a fully clawed, biting, yowling animal the size of my leg into my car. Especially not if I have a good excuse.

At the vet’s, Jake had a marvelous time getting poked, prodded, and stabbed by needles. Much to my relief, he got a mostly clean bill of health. We did find out that he only has one ball, which could be a good excuse for neutering. (To paraphrase what katsu told me the vet said: “The other ball never descended. He’s OK for now, it could seriously fuck shit up down the line. Your choice.”) I am very ambivalent about cutting off jake’s balls – he’s so mellow already, you might mistake him for an area rug, and I’ve read that the hormonal changes can make a cat calmer.

If Jake were any calmer, I think he might stop breathing.

We did get one piece of bad news at the vet’s (again, the absentee “we”). Jake apparently has an ear infection. So we’re supposed to give him eardrops. Like, I can’t get drops into my OWN ears, but somehow we’re supposed to hold down this (normally very mellow) beast of a cat, lift up his ear flap, insert a tiny tiny dropper WITHOUT damaging his tender skin, and then make sure the drops stay put while gently massaging the area above his eye. Right. And apparently, we’re supposed to lather, rinse, and repeat five to seven times per day.

“Five to SEVEN times a day?” I asked, incredulous. “You don’t even have to take antibiotics that often!”

“That’s what he said”, replied my husband, popping open a beer.

“Hm.” I finished making my vodka and soda, while Jake mewled balefully and eyed the medicine with disdain. “Good luck with that, then.”

So for the past week, we’ve been holding him down, multiple times each day, and squirting at him with eardrops. The cat hates it, and will flail and yelp and squirm while we wedge his hindquarters under our legs and hold him, belly-up, in what we’ve determined to be an optimal eardrop-dispensing position. It’s definitely a two-person job, but Katsu’s been doing it pretty well on his own. Tonight, he had to work a night shift, and the task of evening drops was left to me. Being smaller and more skittish than my husband, I could only get one ear done before Jake overpowered me and ran under the bed, so I took at the bottle to see what the consequences of underdosing might be.

The bottle reads: “five to seven drops, ONCE DAILY”

Fucking christ.