Never demonstrate that you might be sick to your staff. My left ear had been bothering me for quite some time and then, suddenly, it really hurt. I would walk around the house with my ear flat and my head tilted way to the left. That was a mistake. My staff began to notice and the next thing I knew, they scooped me up off the floor, stuffed me in a black bag, and put me in the car. I was highly irritated by that and managed to set up quite a howl--all the way to the vet's. And wouldn't you know, staff got lost trying to find the right vet.

Then I had another surprise: I had never seen this particular vet before!! Where was I? What happened to that nice guy, Dr. Martinez? Who is this Dr. Henderson? And why do I hear a dog barking? Where is the dog? Would he be bounding into the same room where I was?

Finally, the dog stopped barking and staff opened the black bag that contained the howling cat. If staff had any thoughts about me getting out of the black bag, they were sadly mistaken. I had no intention of going anywhere.

Now you have to understand that Dr. Henderson is a huge human! I was cowering in the bag when he stood over me. He pulled at my ears. Then he stuck a light in them and finally looked up at staff and said "muy grande infección". Now, you have to understand that female staff (Mom) understands little or no Spanish. So she stood there with a question mark all over her face while male staff (Daddy) and the doctor yammered away in Spanish.

Anyway, after much Spanish discussion, the doctor decided to teach staff how to treat my ears with the medicine. So he pulled my ear again and then dropped five drops into my ear. Oh, how I hated that! Then he massaged the hell out of my ear. That felt pretty good, actually. And finally, he swabbed out my ear with cotton, all the while giving staff the lecture about no Q-tips. I was glad to hear that, since Mom had attempted to clean out my ear the day before with a Q-tip. I wouldn't let her, but she tried.

The last thing Dr. Henderson said to my staff was "you must do this twice a day, five drops in each ear, for TWO WEEKS!!! Two weeks? Oh, Lord, help me!! Suddenly the doctor decided I needed a shot. He stood sort of behind the black bag and talked away. OUCH!! That bastard stuck me! And would you believe, he just said "Oops!" and walked away. I was highly insulted!

Well, that was the "official" end to my vet visit except that Daddy had to pay the man. They zipped up the black bag again and I assumed we were leaving. Hah!! Daddy didn't have exact change for Dr. Henderson and he didn't have any change either. So we had to wait while the doctor ran all over the neighborhood finding the proper change. I decided to howl again. I howled and howled. And then the damn dog started barking again. I punished my staff by howling all the way home.

Now it has been about six days since the hair-raising trip to the huge vet. And staff has not missed a dose of medicine for my ears. I will be sleeping on the floor and suddenly, Mom scoops me up and places me on Daddy's breakfast table. Then they launch an all-out attack on my ears. I howl and cry the entire time. Mom complains that the medicine is greasy. She swears that the tile floors are also greasy where I sleep. Good! Maybe she'll step in a grease spot and zziipp!! across the floor.