The Vine: July 22, 2004
Dear Sars:
I need help with a feline issue.
Our cat, Tabby, has been a wonderful addition to our lives. We adopted her two years ago as a middle-aged stray from the SPCA. She is very loving and snuggly, makes biscuits in our laps, comes to greet me at the front door like a dog, nibbles our chin with lovebites, and has won the hearts of everyone. She’s the best.
Problem: The Tabster turns into a feisty, fanged, feline Fury when we need to clip her nails. This is a cat who NEVER bites (unless I’m really asking for it by merciless teasing, and even then it’s more of a warning nip). What to do? We’ve tried different locations (kitchen counter, carpeted floor, on my husband’s lap on the couch), we’ve tried putting a dishtowel over her head (ostensibly to keep her calm, but more to provide a barrier between her fangs and my flesh). My husband is the official handler/scruffer and I wrangle the clippers. I know what I’m doing with the clippers, so it’s not a timidity issue — I’m a lifelong pet owner and have successfully clipped black dog nails, which is like the PhD of pet pedicures. I can get right in there and do it, but she just becomes this absolute ball of HATE. Her feet are very sensitive in general — she will not tolerate them being touched or stroked, even with no clippers in sight.
We had her checked for any medically explicable toenail sensitivity issues, and she does have one toe with a stubborn nailbed infection, but otherwise, she’s fine. I wish we had the time or money to take her to the vet once a month (she cringes and cowers and they manage to clip her nails with no problem — argh). Any advice? I’m ready to ask the vet for a Valium prescription (for us, not her).
Signed,
We Give Up — Tabby Wins
Dear You Have The Power Of Ten, For Your Towel Is Pure,
Some cats just hate it; it doesn’t hurt them, but they can’t cope for whatever reason (usually it’s because nobody got them accustomed to it as kittens).
A time-honored strategy is to wrap the entire cat in the towel like a mummy, leaving one foot free to clip it. The mummy-wrap 1) cuts down on ancillary clawing and biting, 2) muffles offended yowling, and 3) is freakin’ hilarious, because you’ve got a tube of furious terrycloth with one livid arm sticking out and flailing around. On the down side, rewrapping the cat to get to the next paw is not always an unqualified success, but try it and see how it goes.
She’ll hate you — not least because, when she’s released, she’ll be all fuffed up and have to take a two-hour bath to get back in order, but by the time she gets done smoothing herself, she’ll probably have forgotten all about it.
Dear Sars,
It’s been almost a year since my ex-boyfriend. He spent a lot of time at my house and left behind so much stuff. It’s all sitting in a box that has been moved around from room to room until I finally put in the corner of my closet. The contents of the box includes: two winter coats, a pair of boots, socks, t-shirts, a porn DVD, some CDs, a few National Geographic magazines, notebooks, action figures (one of which is Jar Jar Binks) and a Yankees hat.
I haven’t heard from him since we broke up, and I really don’t want to. It’s taken me a long time to move past the reasons why I broke up with him in the first place, but I don’t know what to do with his stuff. Various people have told me to sell it on eBay, trash it or burn it, but I feel badly about doing that. My closet is pretty big so this stuff has been out of my way, but I just want to get rid of him for good.
Thanks,
Spring cleaner
Dear Spring,
Jar Jar? Well, that answers the “why hasn’t he gotten in touch to claim his stuff” question; he’s probably embarrassed. And rightly so.
And he hasn’t gotten in touch, so you can probably assume that he’s written the stuff off and you can do with it as you like — but if you can bear to get in touch with him yourself, the sporting thing to do is to send a businesslike email telling him to pick up his things (which you can leave with the doorman/on the porch/ship to him at his expense/whatever so you don’t have to see him, if you like).
If you don’t get a response, take it to Goodwill.
Sars,
I’m pretty good friends with a woman from work — we do lunch, go shopping, do movies on the weekends, whatever. She’s a nice person, and I like her.
Problem is, she’s one of those people who complains constantly but never does a damn thing to make her situation better. Case in point: she’s almost 35 years old and still lives in her parents’ basement. She says she can’t afford to move out. At first she told me that she paid her mother some rent every month, except that it was later revealed that to my friend “paying rent” means “giving my mother unfettered access to my entire paycheck.” She pays her family’s cable and electric bills, and just paid to replace the household dryer out of her own pocket because “she uses it more than anyone.” She has no savings account and doesn’t take advantage of our company’s 401(k) plan — things that would give her the means to get out of her toxic living situation. Meanwhile, her 27-year-old brother also lives at home, pays no rent, and blows all of his money on fixing up his Camaro and getting wasted while he is cooked for, cleaned for and shopped for, mostly by Friend and her mother.
Apparently this is all hunky-dory with Friend, because when I get appalled and suggest that she sit down with her mother and come up with a better financial plan (including making Brother pull his own weight), Friend says, “But I caaaaan’t, and I’d feel guilty for not helping out my family.” When I gently explain to her that there’s a big difference between “helping out” and “being taken advantage of” she gets huffy with me.
In addition to family/money stuff, she’s spent six years in a job for which she’s overqualified and underpaid, and spent 11 years dating a loser mama’s boy who doesn’t respect her.
Every time I see her she has a new “woe is me” story, given in her typical good-natured tone. Friend is a good person with a lot of potential, but I’m getting frustrated seeing her take crap from pretty much everyone in her life. I’ve long since stopped telling her what she wants to hear in favor of what I actually think, which is that her family is holding her back and that it’s not selfish to look out for Number One. Is there anything I can do to help her, or should I resign myself to the fact that Friend enjoys being a doormat and a martyr?
Thanks for your insight,
So, This Is How You Want to Live Your Life? Hmm?
Dear Looks That Way,
Resign yourself. You can’t really get her to see where she’s going wrong, because on some level, she doesn’t think she is going wrong; she’s getting something she needs out of that pathetic situation. And anyway, just generally you can’t tell people that kind of thing. They need to come to it on their own.
You can point out that, if she’s not going to do anything to change her situation, you don’t necessarily want to hear the same complaints over and over — that you respect her need to vent up to a point, but that that point is past. But that’s about it. You can’t change people.
[7/22/04]
Tags: boys (and girls) cats etiquette friendships
