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Home » Stories, True and Otherwise

Fat City

Submitted by on April 17, 2007 – 6:46 PM70 Comments

And Little Joe is the mayor. Or ate the mayor. One of those.

For Little Joe’s area-rug impression, click the link…

On the upside, this photo shows off his unique striping patterns to good effect. On the downside, this photo indicates that there is an enormous cat throwing my mattress out of alignment.

fat1.jpg

For reference, the pillows in the photo measure about 15 inches square. For further reference, the pillow in the foreground is actually a very very fat cat. A cat-shaped pillow wouldn’t have such hilariously tiny ears. Or bite you when you sat on it. Or be…that fat.

fat2.jpg

Towards the bottom of the photo, you can see a toy mouse — standard size. You can also see the toe of a size-nine slipper towards the right there. And in the middle, there is a huge cat.

fatmouse.jpg

Parker Posey is quite petite, but my cat is still eight times her size.

fatposey.jpg

The chair seen here is actually the one the statue sits in at the Lincoln Memorial. Heh. Okay, seriously. The bike is right next to him and it’s a standard ten-speed.

catbike.jpg

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70 Comments »

  • romancoat says:

    Whoah! And to think I used to tease my kitty about his belly-pouch….

    All cats are cute though, fat or not.

  • va bene says:

    Hee fat cats are funny. My little Stella has grown a strange pouch this winter. She’s a pretty small cat so it’s especially funny to see the hanging “udders” sway back and forth when she runs toward her food dish.

    None of the other cats are that fat though, curious.

  • SarahD says:

    That’s it–we MUST set up a deathmatch between Little Joe and Parker Posey. He would totally win.

  • Laurel says:

    Be warned: if he starts developing health problems one of the first things they’ll probably do is give him an ultrasound which means his entire belly will be shaved. I had a 15 pound calico and I knew she was fat but I had no true idea until her until belly was naked and I could see the jiggling rolls. It was NOT a pretty sight. Funny (especially when she’d run) but not pretty. Her problem was caused by her thyroid so instead of giving her shots I just had to shove pills down her throat twice a day. What with all the spitting them back up over and over again that only took an hour or two out of each day. :-P

  • Courtney says:

    Oh my! It is a fat Jaiden! He looks a lot like my little 7-lb “nervous nelly,” only fat!! Awww…..

  • Marchelle says:

    My Izumi and Inque are both quite petite, barely topping five pounds, as were my previous babies. My roomie’s cat, however, ignomiously named “Little One,” is so fat that when she lies on her side, she kind of… wobbles on her belly until her back or feet touch the floor. She ignores any attempt by my girls to play, as this would require she expend energy.

  • Mike says:

    I guess the “camera adding 10 pounds” cliche applies to cats…

  • Erin says:

    Pilling cats. . . . ::shudder::

  • rayvyn2k says:

    Awww, more piccies of Joe! He’s adorable. Yes, he’s “big boned”. But still, adorable.

  • Nichole says:

    This made me think of Little Joe.

  • SarahC says:

    My 15-pounder, Max, did lose weight for a while. This was a big thrill UNTIL I realized he was taking off tonnage only because of a thyroid condition. Once he received radioactive iodine therapy — or was “radiocatted,” in the vet’s words — he was back to his normal, spheroid self. But he carries it well, ’cause he has big paws and a generally cobby build — broad shoulders and rump and thick, short legs. Or at least I tell myself that.

    The 12-pounder, Marty, used to be a skinny boy and so never thinks that the fat jokes are about him. Ah, denial!

  • Frogprof says:

    My Raie [aka Rabies, aka Ratbag, aka, Fatcat, aka G**damnitwillyoumoveyourfatass] — it means “stripe” in French — is “Little” Joe’s doppelganger! They really could be twins. Even their facial stripes [not to mention expressions] are exactly alike … and then there’s the body mass! Rabies has weighed 20 lbs. flat/fat for at LEAST the last 5 years. She and her Demon Seed seestah share 1.5 cups of dry food every day, and they each get about 1.5 Tbls. of NastyCannedTuna each morning … so how is it Raie never gains OR loses an ounce?! And her seestah remains a [relatively] sleek 10 lbs.?! Neither of them has been to a vet in over 4 years [yes, I’m a neglectful mother, but I’m also very poor and just coming out of unemployment], but then neither has shown any sign of diabetes or any other dread disease, thank God. [Well, other than morbid obesity.] Dunno what I’d do if they did … I used to be a phlebotomist, but I think kitty-sticking would be a bit different.

  • Meltina says:

    Frogprof… I hate to break it to you, but I suspect that Raie eats most of that food.

  • englishkate says:

    Re the Fat Cat Debate:
    I’m a vet, and one of the more..challenging parts of my job is having to explain -delicately- to people what the flabby bits of skin underneath their cats are. ‘They’re his udders. He’s just fat.’
    Having said that, my own cat has exceptional udders. He’s black and white, around 7 1/2 kg, and on his bad days resembles a prizewinning dairy cow. Cats are a bitch to get weight off. Feed them less, they sleep more. Still, it can be done.
    Hypothyroidism is much more common in dogs and you usually get other signs as well. Still, a blood test is relatively simple, quick and cheap, and might be worth a try.

  • Samantha says:

    My parents had that chair when I was growing up.. the green one? Looking at that photo I can almost feel it, all velvet-y and smelling of basement rec room. Heh. We had wood paneling too. I forgot all about it ’til I saw your chair.

    Thanks for the memories, no pun intended.

    -Samantha

  • Sandra says:

    His head ….looks so small.

  • Tisha says:

    Little Joe closely resembles my mom’s cat, Henry. Henry has exceptionally fuzzy belly hair, for a short hair cat. Does Little Joy? It looks like it in the first photo.

  • Anthony says:

    Aww, fat kitties are the best because they can’t possibly escape…
    I’m just kidding on the square. Indeed he is handsome.

  • Kristina says:

    Aw, he’s pretty fat. But I knew a cat once who was so much fatter. He looked like a basketball with a regular cat sized head. He couldn’t even clean himself past a certain point. There was a line on his back separating the part he could reach to clean from the matted, smelly part he couldn’t reach. Quite sad, actually.

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