Quickest Squirt Gunner in the West

Part of the reason I’ve been able to nurture a feeling of anxiety about taking the lane when I cycle for so long is that the approach to my apartment building is via a block where I often have had people come up too close behind me, or pass too close or too fast.

It’s uphill, so cars do have to accelerate, which makes it sound a little worse as they go by—the car just sounds angry—but I don’t think I’ve ever actually had anyone honk at me there. Now I’m making a point of being a bit farther out in the lane, to make it clear that I am using the lane, and things seem to be a bit more peaceful.

Maybe I was leaving enough space that it was ambiguous as to whether there was enough space for the car to get by or not, so they would hurry to get the anxiety-producing event over with sooner, or to get out of the way of oncoming traffic, whereas if I’m decisively in the lane, the motorist knows he has to wait for oncoming traffic to be clear, and so doesn’t floor the gas pedal and try to shoot past me.

It is or was Fleet Week, so the Blue Angels did their air show over the weekend, at the usual ear-shattering volume, leaving the odd activated car alarm in their wake. I thought this might frighten Hammett, but he thought it was great and followed the action from his perch by the window. He loves to chase bugs, and maybe thought the airplanes were large bugs, boldly flying right past his house.

We did see Dr. Press yesterday morning. Hammett has got a couple of small symptoms, the kind of things you could treat or just let be. They wanted to take a urine sample, but after a bit, the technician came out and said, “He has no bladder, so we couldn’t get a sample.”

No bladder? The one cat on earth without a bladder, or is this common? If he doesn’t have a bladder, where does he store pee?

Then I realized what she meant and offered an alternate wording: “He has a bladder, but there’s nothing in it right now,” which made other people in the waiting room chuckle.

Thelonious always seemed able to forget her visit to the vet immediately upon arriving home—“Where am I? Oh, this is my house; cool”—but Hammett seemed quite upset when he got back home and was tucked behind the bathroom sink when I left for work.

When I got home from work, he was in the same state, so I opened the closet door so he could hide properly while I went to see Jack Eiman about my aching neck.

When I got back from Jack’s, Hammett was still in the closet and didn’t come out to greet me, at which point I became concerned that they might have hurt him probing the depths of his bladder for an elusive drop of urine. It was a very chaotic day at the pet hospital, and the technician was one I hadn’t seen before.

I finally turned on my computer and did some Googling to see if it is common for a cat’s bladder to be punctured in the course of obtaining a urine sample, but I found no mention of that at all.

I got in bed about 10 p.m. with my Deborah Eisenberg book and, to my relief, heard Hammett chewing on some crunchies in the kitchen, and then he got in bed with me and stayed practically the whole night, nestled right against me.

This morning he seems nearly back to normal, though he still isn’t in the mood to chase one of his sparkly balls, his favorite toys.

I guess he’s just very in touch with his feelings. He tends to run along next to me, sometimes getting underfoot, which makes me afraid I’m going to accidentally kick him, or trip over him and break my neck. The other day, he startled me so much doing this that I spoke sternly to him, at a slightly elevated volume, and I used a bad word, and he stared at me with a terribly wounded expression.

Thelonious would have been completely oblivious in the same situation: “Is that lady talking to me? I wonder what she’s saying.” Whereas Hammett was clearly thinking, “Mama! It’s me! Your baby! Why don’t you love me anymore? Ah, the pain of this rejection! It is unbearable!”

I asked Dr. Press how I could change this behavior before one of us gets hurt, but it sounds like it would be impossible. Dr. Press said I would have to provide a negative result, like the loud noise of coins being shaken in a tin can or a squirt from a water bottle, right when he performs the undesired action, every single time.

I’m prepared to look like a dork wearing a safety vest—you know, including at work—but wearing a safety vest plus holster with squirt gun is probably too much.