Dear Sparkle,
As you know, the puking thing is one of the not-so-fun aspects of being a kitty, but my human makes it even worse for me. The moment I start heaving because I’m about to upchuck my dinner or hack up a hairball, she makes a grab for me! According to her, I’m only supposed to puke in special places. Like, apparently the carpet is off limits and so is the hardwood floor. Do you know what it’s like to be grabbed around the middle and pulled around when you’re feeling sick to your stomach? If I see her coming I try to run away, which is also rather difficult to accomplish when you’re hacking. All I really want is my human to leave me alone while I’m trying to perform this natural, but rather unpleasant kitty function. Got any tips?
Signed,
Queasy
Dear Queasy,
I understand how you feel. It seems like whenever a cat gets ready to vomit, humans go into an uproar. You’d think the house was caving in, the way they behaved! And it’s so inconsiderate. It’s not like we like throwing up! We’re not feeling so great while we’re doing it, and here’s some human, all upset because all she can think about is cleaning up the “mess.” I get the same problem here. My human usually tries to shove us cats onto the linoleum. Less invasive, but just as annoying, is when she tries to shove an old catalog under us in hopes that we’ll puke on that instead of the carpet or the wood floor. All of this is just more proof that humans think only of themselves and their own convenience. And trying to train them out of their selfish behavior is nearly impossible, at least with this particular issue. So I have a couple of suggestions – neither of them is all that satisfactory, but it’s pretty much all you can do. The best tactic is to puke when your human is not around—either if she’s out of the house, or in another part of the house far, far away from you. I know this isn’t always possible—when you’ve got to puke, you’ve got to puke—but if you can swing it, at least you will have some peace while you’re doing it. My second suggestion is for those times when you can’t avoid her and she tries grabbing you. Instead of puking on the floor, puke on her—aim for her shoes, her pants, or even better, her blouse. In fact if it’s one of those blouses she has to take to the place she calls the “dry cleaners,” that’s the ideal choice. Of course, it will seem like an accident, and she won’t hold you accountable. But the important thing is that she will probably let go of you, and you’ll have a couple of brief moments to run off and finish throwing up while she’s otherwise occupied.
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