This past weekend, or the weekend before, or maybe it was just the week before, or jesus christ nevermind let’s just get on with the story, Mrs. ACW and I were talking for some reason about the health of the four-legged shit factories we call our pets.
Despite the magical alchemy that allows them to turn our money into feces, Mrs. ACW said that she couldn’t see paying a lot of money to keep one of the horrible little furballs alive. I, of course, was appalled that she’d suggest harming the tiny little douchebags in any way whatsoever. So I began to probe my wife to try to find out her limits of care for the crap-factories based on monetary values.
“So I guess $3000 for dialysis would be too much for you?”
“Yeah. They’re pets. That’s too much money to spend on a pet.”
“Okay, well what about $1800 bucks for stomach surgery like Charissa’s cat?”
“No. That’s too much money to spend on a cat.”
So basically then I spent the next 30 minutes calling her heartless, and telling her that if the Grinch and Hitler had babies, and then those babies made babies with Satan, those babies would still be nicer than she was. But then I realized I hadn’t figured out what I had intended to figure out. Exactly how much money would it cost to help one of our stupid, idiotic cats before she would simply have them put down. Clearly expensive surgeries lead to the cats getting put to sleep, but what was “expensive”?
“What if Wookie got hit by a truck today, and we take her to the vet and the vet says that she’ll live for another 10 years in perfect health, but it’ll cost $1000 to heal her? What then?”
“I’ll keep my thousand bucks and we can get another cat.”
“You soulless harpy!”
Wookie happened to be walking by, so I picked her up and said, “Do you hear that Wook? Don’t ever go to Mrs. ACW when you’re hurt. She’ll just put you to sleep. Oh, you have a hurt paw? Oh, that’s too bad. I guess Cruella is going to insist we put you to sleep.”
“Whatever jerk.”
I ignored her and went back to talking to Wookie, and as if she knew what I was doing, Wookie sneezed. “Oh no! Wookie, you’re ill! I guess I’ll just have to put you in the trashcan here. You can live on leftovers until the garbage truck comes to pick you up. It’s cheaper than the gas it would take to drive you to the vet to put you down.”
“Now you’re just being ridiculous.”
“I haven’t begun to be ridiculous. You hate our cats! You can’t wait until they show some minimal sign of illness so you can kick them to the curb. What, if Wookie voms up a hairball are you going to flush her down the toilet or stuff her in the garbage disposal or something? Like, ‘Oh, well, a hairball was probably just the tip of the iceberg. Wookie was better off getting flushed.’ You’re a barbarian.”
Then I realized all the examples were based on Wookie being sick, so I changed tactics and asked about Sherlock.
“Well of course not. Sherlock is cute, unlock your stupid cat. We’d have to save Sherlock, no matter what it cost.”
And so it finally became clear. This wasn’t about our cats getting sick. This was about MY cat getting sick. See, Mrs. ACW picked out Sherlock from the litter and brought him home. She cared for him at home that summer while I was at work. Sherlock was her cat. Wookie, on the other hand, just showed up on the doorstep, and Wookie picked me as hers because I let her into the house. It’s not official, but we certainly do have our own cats. However, Mrs. ACW has made one critical error. We were once joking about what would happen to the cats if we ever got divorced, and Mrs. ACW asked which cat I would take. After a contemplating for a few seconds I told her that I’d take the front half of Wookie and Sherlock, and that she could have the back half of both.
But after all this, there was still one question nagging me. We know Mrs. ACW would literally drop-kick Wookie out the front door if Wookie ever got even the tiniest bit sick.
But what happens if I get sick?
