We're Keeping Him But........

This is our cat. 

He gets a medal for taking all the abuse our youngest has doled out. We got him as a kitten when she was only a year old so they have grown up together. He has withstood being used as a pillow (frequently), carried upside down, sideways, backwards, by his neck, you name it. He has submitted to being dressed up in her doll clothes on numerous occasions - I never thought you could get a cat to wear a hat and keep it on for more than 10 seconds. It can be done.

He also thinks he's a dog. For years he chased our terrier around the house and yard. Now the terrier is too old to run but the cat keeps the border collie busy by letting her think he's a sheep and herding him.

He's a champion hunter - not only has he saved us from the yearly mouse migration into our house (every October they come, bags packed, full of decorating ideas for the new space), he has also taken out about 10 squirrels. This is important as the squirrels declared war on us 8 years ago and began eating through various wooden bits of our house. 

But...

He has also been expensive. To date, the regular yearly vet bills notwithstanding, there have also been the bills to sew his nose back together (fight with something - maybe a racoon) and the bill to have his jaw wired back together along with other injuries sustained when he was hit by a car in front of our house. (We live on a residential street with a speed limit of 25 mph - apparently this translates to 55 mph if you're late getting the kids to school.)

But today was the kicker.

Today he ate my contacts.

As in my contact lenses.

Yes, you heard right, the cat ate my contact lenses - the $50 a pair ones. 

Lately he has developed a craving for saline contact solution. At first it was just annoying as both my son and I have had to lock him out of the bathroom while we put in our lenses. He jumps up on the sink and starts licking the saline right out of the lens case (which means I have to add to my busy day the act of boiling my lens case to disinfect it - I'm not sure how many kinds of germs live in a cat's mouth at any given time but I'd bet it's a lot).

Well today he ramped it up. I apparently had not screwed the case covers on tight enough and the cat actually knocked the case off the sink, got the covers off, and licked the case clean - contacts and all. I mean, it's like he had a plan.

I have no intention of subsidizing a diet of contact lenses so my son and I are going to have to develop a security protocol for the storage of all things contact related.

Like I don't have enough to do.