[Essay] Cat Owner Troubles #1: Cat Vomit
By Manager
Meowdy, everyone!
Starting today, I, Hairball Hakinosuke, will be offering some casual advice on the many troubles that plague people who live with cats.
By some strange alignment of the stars, I have spent more than twenty years watching my partner’s cat rescue work from a ringside seat. As a result, an extraordinary number of cats have crossed my path.
And I do mean extraordinary.
At this point, I feel like I have already met my full quota of cats for the next twenty reincarnations.
Why?
I used to wonder. I don’t anymore. They say man is a thinking reed, but sometimes life is healthier if you just remain a reed.
Now then.
Our first problem is cats horking.
Let me give you the answer immediately.
Cats hork.
They hork on brand-new carpets. They hork on your favorite down comforter. They hork on your laptop. They climb to the very top of the cat tower and unleash a magnificent shower of hork upon the lowly humans below. The variations are endless. For every cat, there is a hork. This is one of the fundamental truths of the universe.
So what should you do?
Simple. Let them hork.
You cannot stop it anyway.
If you drank too much and were about to throw up, your stomach would not politely reconsider just because you said, “Hey, we just put down a brand-new carpet today!”
Same thing.
Cat horking is a natural phenomenon, just like earthquakes and lightning. Faced with forces of such magnitude, humankind is powerless. Once it begins, all you can do is receive.
It’s okay to look ridiculous. Trip over a chair if you must. Tear your pants if necessary. This is not the Olympics. Nobody is judging your form.
Just. Catch. The puke.
This is where a dedicated receptacle comes in handy. We use a wooden bowl we bought at a neighborhood flea market for 200 yen.
(Something like this.)
It is excellent.
A flat plate lets the puke splatter. A bowl that is too shallow lets the puke escape. After considerable trial and error—and after sacrificing a mountain of tissues—we finally arrived at this particular bowl. Its lightweight is another plus. I have no idea who made it, but I doubt its creator ever imagined that one day their bowl would become a beloved piece of equipment for catching cat vomit.
There is one important rule:
Do not put anything in it.
Under no circumstances should you use it to store candy.
“Uh-oh, the cat’s about to hork!”
“The bowl! Get the bowl!”
“Oh no—THE CANDY IS IN THE BOWL!”
And while you spend three precious seconds frantically scooping the candy out, alas, the cat has already vomited. Because of those three lost seconds, your nicest outfit is now covered in puke, and you will be attending tonight’s singles mixer in a sweatshirt with LOSER printed across the chest.
(A bad example. This path leads inevitably to a puke-covered life.)
Life is built from moments like these.
I have worked as a freelance translator for many years, and in my line of work, time is more or less money. If I catch the puke in a bowl, I don’t have to spend time cleaning the carpet. That means I can work instead.
Exactly.
Catching puke is making money.
The same applies even if you have a regular job. Use those five saved minutes to read a book. Answer an email. Open the refrigerator, confirm that there is still nothing inside, and close it again. Look out the window and think, That cloud looks kind of like a dog.
Personally, I would prefer to look at the cloud.
There are people in this world who innocently steal these precious minutes from us. The person who says, “Got a sec?” and then talks for thirty minutes. The person who asks you the exact same thing next week that you already explained this week. The person who, “just trying to help,” does something nobody asked them to do and somehow creates even more work for you.
Whenever I encounter people like this, I think of cat puke. Puke is simple. You wipe it up and it’s gone. Humans come back. They are demons. They are from hell. Keep your distance.
Anyway.
Back to the subject.
The moment your cat begins going,
“Hrk. Hrk. Hrk.”
the clock is ticking.
And for reasons known only to cats, they will often leave an easily washable surface such as hardwood flooring and deliberately move toward a fluffy rug or your bed.
“YOU WERE FINE WHERE YOU WERE!”
“PLEASE, JUST DO IT THERE!”
Ignoring our desperate pleas, the cat marches onward, guided by some invisible homing device.
This is precisely why your puke bowl must always be within immediate reach. Not in the back of a cupboard. Not buried in a closet. And do not hide it because you are worried about how your home looks when guests visit. Guests do not come every day. Your cat does. Get your priorities wrong and you will die.
So there you have it.
Go and prepare a dedicated cat-horking bowl right now. Even if it saves you only a few minutes each time, those minutes add up.
Catch the puke. Use your time wisely. Live a richer and more fulfilling life.
And once you have used all that saved time to work and make some money, perhaps you could buy one of our shirts. We are, technically, a T-shirt shop. This one, for example, is quite popular.
If that is asking too much, we would also be delighted if you joined our newsletter. That one is free.
One serious note before we go:
If your cat suddenly starts vomiting more often than usual, there is blood in the vomit, or your cat seems lethargic or has lost its appetite, forget everything I just said about bowls and go straight to a veterinarian.
See you next time.
Bye-meow!