Doctor, It Hurts When I Go Like This

A few years ago, somebody in charge of California, the bleeding heart bright blue utopia set apart from our backwards sister states in the way that we're built on the unique principles of worker exploitation and police shootings, decided it should be illegal to buy and sell pets. The original law was passed in 2017 and has since been refined and strengthened in an effort to crawl our way toward the goal of being a no-kill state for shelter companion animals. Dogs, cats, rabbits, etc., I think the law means. I'm not sure how far down the policy extends to things like rodents and reptiles, but maybe at some point we just throw them all in a pit together and see who comes out on top. It won't be cruel because it will be like how it is in nature, if nature looked a lot more like UFC.

I'm not sure where these good-hearted no-sales people were when I bought a dog from a mall for $1500 in 2009, but hey, fine, good looking out for everyone else.

The new law means that there are no more pet purchases, only pet adoptions in this state. When I got my first-ever cat about a month ago, I had to fill out this whole adoption application that said I'd be home a bunch and could never abandon my animal and would subject myself to wellness visits by the agency. It feels intrusive and scary, but my son got his cat through the same agency and they have made zero follow-ups or checks on any of the things that seemed super important on the form. As vulnerable and judged as it made me feel, what was the consequence going to be? Would they repossess my cat? You just ask the Mormons or the Jehovah's Witnesses or, hell, event he DoorDash drivers I invited here how easy it is to get me to open my front door. I could be in here doing some really darkly abusive shit to this cat--making her wear vests, letting her watch Fox News--and there's not a goddamned thing they could do about it.

After all that though, they still charged me $50 and I got her from a PetSmart, so it sure felt like I was buying a cat, except: I got a broken one! And even though the whole detailed contract I had to fill out exists, it doesn't count as a receipt! They made me promise I couldn't take it back, even if it was defective! That's Joe Biden's America right there.

Actually she's a good and decent, if jittery cat. She can't jump for shit, which is not the actual defective part, that's just hilarious to watch. No, she got this sore on her chin, but it healed up after a few days. But right above that now she has a fat lip, which does not seem to be healing in the same way. So I have no idea if the incidences are related or not, and no amount of googling "cat fat lip" has yielded encouraging results. It turns out googling pet symptoms has the exact same effect as googling human symptoms: eventually, they all say you have cancer.

I'm pretty confident my cat does not have face cancer, though. At $58 for just the visit, I feel like I'd be getting my money's worth if the vet found something, but at the same time, "something" from veterinarians is always super expensive. It's been a long time since I've had a pet (more than a decade), but they always said "well, the expensive part is the anesthetic." They want to knock these animals out for every goddamned thing, as I recall. X-rays on a squirmy dog, OK, fine, I guess I get it, but you're expressing anal glands, I think Tabby can tough it out fully conscious.

It's all too late now because I'm stuck with her. All the pets I've had in the past have been in multi-human households, so this is the first time I'm bonding with a pet, just one-on-one. That shit gets deep pretty fast, like full co-dependent deep. I probably should have sprung for the pet insurance just to cover the therapy.