Shame, yesterday I inflicted upon my two kitties the very punishment that you would only ever wish upon your worst enemy, a trip to the vet for a bit of a snip snip and some tube tying.
We’d done some shopping around and eventually settled on ‘The Cottage’ a small little veterinary clinic here in Gordon’s Bay as our vet of choice. Surprisingly enough, the operations to get Olympus neutered and Coco spade are flipping expensive, with the boy costing somewhere around R250 odd and the girl costing around the R400 mark (I can’t quite remember the prices, but those sound more or less right). Apparently the SPCA and vets base their pricing on a person’s income bracket, meaning that perhaps we would have been better off locating a nearby bergie and bribing him to get it done for us. :)
Anyway, determined to do the right thing, we organized the big day and come yesterday, a mewling Coco and Olympus, who had been locked up and without food since 20:00 the previous evening, were unceremoniously handed over and the paperwork filled out.
So signed up for their ops, first set of shots and a bit of FrontLine to deal with the plague of fleas currently infesting our bedroom carpet (coming to the grand total of well, almost a grand – R901 to be exact), the kitties were left behind and the wait began.
Thankfully no emergency phone calls came through the entire day, and late afternoon the time finally arrived for the big family reunion pickup. Chantelle abandoned the guesthouse where she’s been living for the past week and together we headed off to the vet, eager to take our two babies back into our custody.
Inside, the vet saw us and asked if we were there to pick up the two boys. Boys? Nope, definitely not us, we’re here for the boy and the girl that we brought in this morning, right? To which the vet, the receptionist and another member of staff shook their heads, laughed and explained to us that both of our kitties are in fact… male.
Yes, believe it or not, Coco, the girliest cat you will ever meet, the one who hangs around the house, always looks for love, allows Olympus to ‘suckle’ on her/him and who has even been humped by Olympus before, is indeed… a little boy.
Which would explain then why the furry bugger is so big.
Chantelle and I just stood there, mouths open and in complete shock, unable to grasp the fact that Coco is indeed not the Coco we thought her/him to be. Thank goodness we never named her/him ‘Ms Tinky Winky’ or some horribly pink name like that. As it is, I guess we are now officially dropping the ‘Chanel’ part from ‘Coco Chanel’ though.
Anyhow, we transported our two rather unstable and very groggy boys back home where they stumbled around in circles, had a quick nibble at some food, and then passed out on the couch or whatever soft, squishy and warm thing was lying around, close to ground level.
Shame, I feel like such a bastard for allowing their manhood to be so cruelly snipped away from them after only six and a half months of life on this earth. Hopefully I can buy their love back with some tasty, premium pet food then…