Cat-astrophe

I'm gonna get a few ugly messages about this one. 

I might deserve them---I'm not at all sure what might come out as I write this.

The longest-lived creature on this good earth has got to be the domestic house cat....or perhaps it just seems that way.  As a farm girl who had a small herd of outdoor pets as a child, only one of whom lived for more than a few years, I certainly never imagined just how many years an indoor cat could lie around furring up everything, nor how dang demanding your average feline could be.  And I sure never thought about the fact that keeping a cat stocked in litter, cat pan liners, treats, medicine, and Iams cat food (because the cheap stuff makes them sick) would cost roughly the equivalent of an Ivy League education after the years start to stack up.

See, I find myself with a little issue here:  I have two cats that by age (14 years) should be on the very last of their nine lives, but who show only one or two very, very bad signs of aging.  Otherwise, they are fairly lively and limber for being, pardon the expression, so long in the tooth.  I am beginning to wonder whether I should arrange nursing care for them for after I'm gone.

In case you aren't aware, I do believe the pet-to-people ratio should always be at the least equal, but preferably in favor of the people.  It just gets into weird territory if the people have more pets than family members.  It gets even weirder if you're a single female high school English teacher; the simple fact that I have two cats has made me the Crazy Cat Lady to 10 years of students.  (No, men don't seem to get this same association; one of my co-teacher friends is a single man who has had a truly staggering number of dogs at times, but no one calls him the Crazy Dog Man.  Why is that?)  I'm not the crazy cat lady; for that matter, I'm none of those things except a little crazy at times. 

No, in seriousness, I have two cats because those 14 years ago, my bestie Laura and I were sharing a house, and we both thought having a pet would be good.  She was a dog person, but I didn't like the idea of an indoor-outdoor animal in Tick-Heaven Tahlequah, so we thought about a cat, but hadn't come to any decision.  And then one weekend in Arrowhead Mall in Muskogee, just wandering down to Sears at the east end, we noticed some kittens in the window of the pet store.  They were the tiniest kittens imaginable.  She thought the black one was adorable.  I fell in love with the gray one.  They were sibling tuxedo cats, and they seemed to go together like a matched set.  That's how I came to have two cats.  Laura loved her little black and white Figaro, like the Disney cat, and I knew who my cat was from the first:  Fitz, after F. Scott Fitzgerald, in a very dashing gray tuxedo.  They were so tiny that they would crawl into both sides of a Kleenex box, the kind with the rounded opening on the top and the front, and go to sleep. 

Those cats saw a lot of life in that house.  Fitz learned how to open the screened door to the deck and run out into the yard, so I had to put in a hook-and-eye closure to keep him from busting out when we weren't looking.  They ate about $600 worth of silk flower arrangements and killed every plant in the house.  They completely took down our Christmas tree the first year we had them; after that, we had to tie the tree to the wall and use things that couldn't break to decorate with.  Although those things pissed us off, we laughed endlessly at their usual cat antics:  chasing after nothing, leaping wildly after toys, climbing door frames, chirping at the bug or birds through the screen door, and the hysterical way they would come skidding into the kitchen if we asked "Kitties want treats?"  Less cute was the way they learned to steal money and hair accessories and jewelry, though most of it ended up in the middle of Laura's bed, like they were offering penance to the "nice" human in the house.  They protected her right up to the end:  when the funeral home came to get her after she passed away, we had to take them right off her hospital bed that we'd installed in the living room.  And she returned the favor, asking nothing of me before she died except to never separate the cats. 

I never have.  We have been without her for almost 11 years now.  I've tried to figure out what to do a few times, because I'm not enough for two cats who were used to having two available laps to sit in, and now they have not even one lap, one human who pays enough attention to them.  I'm gone from home at least 13 hours most days during the week; when I AM home, I am either working or sleeping most of the time.  I know they need more from their people---or rather, their person.

That may be why Fig and Fitz have been developing new problems.  They are not easy problems to solve, either---issues at both ends of the cat, so to speak.  So far, it's cost me several hundred dollars, with no real answers. 

So how does one know when it's time to say goodbye to an old, furry friend?  Is it reasonable to let them continue struggling, knowing they've been by my side for a truly shocking number of years?  Is it inhumane to say "enough is enough" and let them rest?  I only know that as long as they are here, they will be a living, breathing link to the happiest and best part of my past.  Even as they continue to hide my barrettes and barf on my newest magazine, I love them for their lazy green eyes and funny antics---and for the rough equivalent of a European vacation that I've invested in them.  They have been well worth it.