We All Need a Shave Every Now and Then

We have an old cat. He’s been with us for about 14 years now. He isn’t really a “lap” cat. He often qualifies as a “nervous” or “scaredy” cat. He is not really a people cat. With the exception of a few house guests I usually only see him when only Sue and I are in the house.

As time has gone on, he is losing flexibility and isn’t cleaning himself as well as he was in the past. This caused a his fur to become clumpy.

Now enter the fact that we are messing with his whole home/life by doing a lot of home remodeling. Making this “nervous” cat a downright “nearly-in-full-on-complete-emotional-meltdown” cat. The clumps seemed to become more and more of his body.

Sue decided to solve the problem by gently pulling the clumps out. It didn’t take long to figure out she couldn’t keep up with the number of clumps his nervous emotions could create. The real solution was to take him to a groomer and “clean” him up.

Take the nervous overly emotional cat to a groomer. That groomer was in for a job and a half. She did great, but determined that the best course of action was to…get this…shave the cat. When I opened the carrier once he was home, my cat didn’t walk out. Instead what walked out was something that resembled my cat, but also a rather large rat/poodle cross. The laughter was so loud I could hardly stand it. And that was JUST Sue. (She is going to give that poor guy a complex.)

Have you ever looked at a cat after what my dad would call, a “pig shave”? What makes seem even more unusual is not just a shaved cat. It is the parts that weren’t groomed. He looks like a balloon animal that is only fully inflated on his head, legs, and the very tip of his tail. So our cat has a resemblance to a poodle as opposed to a cat. He looks strange. But…

You know what? He is out more. He comes up and sits on my lap more. This change, albeit an ugly one, seems to have made a new cat. I never thought I would say or type this, but he has confidence. It got me to thinking; we all need a shave every now and then. We need to change things up in our lives. We need to shake the “snow globe” that is our lives. It doesn’t have to be a new home, car, or job. Although sometimes those items can make a difference in your life. It can be something simple, like a haircut. Or just a smile on your face.

Try it out. Take my cat’s advice and get a shave, or a haircut, or a smile. It might just change how you feel about yourself. And how others feel about you too.

Now, to try to bring that smile forward. Here he is. Sue just needs to think of him looking like this and she cracks up. When she sees him, she simply loses it. I seriously thought she was going to laugh herself into labor this past Saturday when she got him shaved.