Me vs. the cat. And the winner was...

Today was surgery day for Ollie.

As directed, we starved in after 7 p.m. last night – so that this morning he followed me everywhere I went in hopes that I would fill his food bowl – and just before 8 a.m., I tried to get him into his cage to go.

Key word here is tried.

The first try should’ve been easy enough. He was lying on my bed, and I walked in with the cage, put it down, picked him up and tried to drop him in. I forgot how strong he is, and he managed to wriggle and squirm out of my grasp before he was fully in, and made a beeline for under the bed.

I tried to push him out with the broom, but all that got me was some hisses and growls and a cat who cowered even further under the bed.

So, I moved to Plan B and went into the kitchen and banged his food bowls around. He came running and I scooped him up and turned around to put him in the cage only to discover Austin playing with the cage lid. And, well, I don’t have three hands, as handy it would be, and couldn’t manage to hold the cat down and pry the cage lid away from Austin at the same time. The cat ran away.

Now he was hiding under the table. Time for Plan C. I put food in his bowl and put the bowl on the floor. He came out, looked warily at me and ran off. I grabbed him as he ran but this time, before I could get him to the cage he hissed, growled and tried to bite me. I dropped him.

By this point, almost 30 minutes had gone by and I was starting to lose it. I tried again with the food, but this time, Ollie was too smart for me and didn’t even come out from under the table. While I was trying to think of a Plan D, Austin – who thought this whole game was hysterical – tried to crawl under the table to see Ollie. Ollie, who by this point was in no mood to be friendly, hissed at Austin and then took a swipe at him. He missed him by inches and Austin came out from under the table screaming.

I hate to admit this, but a 14-pound cat managed to outsmart me this morning. At 8:45, I dropped a now-calmed-down Austin off at the sitter’s. At 9:30, I finally got into work. Right now, my cat is probably still cowering under the table and the cage is still lying in the middle of the kitchen floor.

And the surgery; it’s been rescheduled for next week.