I have a cat. Her name is Goldberg. She is named after Bob Goldberg the professional wrestler. Back in the mid-90s when I acquired my cat, Bob Goldberg was undefeated in the professional wrestling world. I figured since my cat was a bad ass, I should name her after a bad ass, so Goldberg her name became. At the time I named her I didn’t actually know whether she was a girl cat or a boy cat, so it wasn’t like gender specificity was a big consideration in naming her.
She first came into my life when I was moving into a new apartment. I had been renting a house with my boyfriend at the time, and at the end of the lease we/I decided to look for something different. I came upon a 2 bedroom on the 3rd floor of a brownstone that overlooked Lake Superior. The New York Building, as it was called, wasn’t in the best neighborhood, but the price was right and it had character. When I checked the place out, the old tenants were still there along with their junk and their cat. I figured that come Monday when the place was mine, I would be walking into a clean empty apartment.
To my surprise the place was neither clean, nor empty. In fact, it was filthy and filled with shit the former tenants very obviously didn’t feel like bothering to move to wherever they were moving. Of course, given the shape of the ratty mattress they left behind, I can see their reasoning. Even more surprising though was that they had also left the cat. I am a cat person (or at least I was before becoming a homeowner) and I really had wanted a cat but my boyfriend was allergic so we never got one. That is, until we acquired one. I decided to give the former tenants a couple of days to come back for their cat, and when they didn’t return, I took the cat to the vet and got her shots and also had her fixed (because I was listening when Bob Barker said at the end of Price is Right “Have your pets spayed or neutered.”) At this point I claimed the cat as my own. I was not about to have the former cat owners come back for their cat after I had put out a bunch of money on vet expenses.
At the time, Goldberg had what I consider her first visit to the vet, he guessed that she was likely about 3 or 4 years old. That was 18 years ago. Needless to say that at present Goldberg is exceedingly elderly. Because of Goldberg’s advanced age she no longer grooms herself the way she ought to, and before I realized it, she had become one hairball matted mess. I tried to clean her up with my trusty de-matting tool, and a haircutter’s scissors, but Goldberg has all of her very sharp claws (she was never declawed) and in spite of her age she is very quick and fearsome when pissed off. After day 5 or 6 of Goldberg drawing blood and me not making any headway in my efforts to turn this hairball back into my beautiful cat I determined it was time to bring in the big guns.
I took Goldberg for an appointment with a groomer she’d seen once before for the same reason, only that time she wasn’t nearly as bad off as she was now. With the two of us holding her while she was muzzled and harnessed, Pat the groomer managed to shave Goldberg. Pat informed me that this wasn’t going to be the prettiest of haircuts, but I assured her that this was all about function over form at this point. She managed to get Goldberg completely de-matted by shaving all of her but her head, tail, and legs.
She looks so skinny now, but I am grateful that her tail was left as is, because I can only imagine what sort of alien freak she would look like if it had not been. Most of all, however, I am grateful to Pat for doing what I was unable to do which is get my cat back to a condition in which she can be healthy. I plan on including a picture just as soon as I get one taken, so stay tuned and remember, Get you pets spayed or neutered!