Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: annoyed
  • Music: Wicked, "Wonderful."

Putting poison on the cats.

So recently, I had an unwelcome house guest: an elderly black cat spent about a week and a half in the laundry room, waiting to be removed to its new home. There were a lot of very good reasons for the cat's presence, most of which I don't really want to go into. Lilly and Alice were fascinated by the interloper; Lilly wanted to kill it, while Alice wanted to PLAY PLAY PLAY. Behold the difference between "manic" and "temperamental," ladies and gentlemen. The cat was eventually removed, returning the house to its normal state...but a host's gift was kindly left behind.

We have fleas again.

This was discovered when I took Alice to the groomer on Saturday (she'd managed to develop belly mats, thanks to all my recent traveling, and I just wanted them gone so we could return to non-painful grooming). "Did you know you have fleas? Oh, the poor baby, she's just crawling with them."

As I'm sure you can imagine, I was...displeased. I fought a long, hard battle to get rid of the fleas last time this happened. Since Alice is a longhair and Lilly has a very dense, plush coat, it's possible for them to have fleas without my actually being able to see the signs. And since I brush both of them really regularly, they don't get as itchy as they might otherwise, so I don't get as much visible scratching. I went straight out and got flea medication, along with carpet powder and bedding spray. Then I came home and checked the calendar.

See, most flea treatments are given at one-month intervals, and I needed to be sure the second dose would come due after I got back from Australia. Today turned out to be the magical day. The day I poured poison on the cats.

Alice took it with good grace, because Alice sweats sedatives. Lilly was substantially more offended, and slunk off to glare at me for about twenty minutes. I don't care. THE FLEAS WILL DIE. Thus I swear.

Stupid fleas.
Tags: alice, cats, cranky blonde is cranky, lilly
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  • 70 comments

muddlewait

August 12 2010, 00:57:10 UTC 6 years ago

Woohoo! An opportunity to overshare.

The cat my wife had when I met her – Ariel, a Maine Coon/Siamese crossbreed – had a terrible case of fleas for a while. They got all over the house, and as I'm allergic to flea bites, things got, er, pretty gross. Anyway, we ended up getting some seriously potent stuff to treat her: just a few drops on the back of her neck turned little Ariel into Princess Death, scourge of fleakind. In just two days, every flea in the house had given up its teeny tiny ghost. I was so happy that, despite also being allergic to cats, I picked up our kitty and kissed her on the nose.

That’s when I found out I am much, much more allergic to flea medication than I am to either fleas or cats, and nearly choked to death on my own massively swollen uvula. On the plus side, though, my friends now know how to take me down if I ever become dangerous.

(Seriously, it was huge. Like having two tongues. So, hopefully that image works its way into someone’s nightmare.)

seanan_mcguire

August 16 2010, 15:13:34 UTC 6 years ago

Guh.

Don't do that again.